


Telling Me, Love

by zaymani



Category: Fifth Harmony (Band), Little Mix (Band), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Baby!Ally, Baby!Louis, Break ups and make ups, F/F, Fluff and Smut, Slow Build, bumps on the road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 02:25:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 48,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1411489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaymani/pseuds/zaymani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Alternate universe: Normani is a single mom to a two year old, Ally, her best friends are Dinah Jane and Lauren, and they all live in Atlanta.   The first time Normani goes out since Allyson was born she brings a girl home, you would think the girl would leave after but instead she stays until Normani wakes up and hands her an orange juice and kisses her again.   The last time Normani was in love she got married to young, divorced and now has a two year old daughter.   Will Normani be OK with falling in love again?    Or will she break her own heart, and Camila's as well?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Telling Me, Love

**Author's Note:**

> So I had originally posted this as a chapter story on Wattpad but I wanted to post it here as one long oneshot, so I hope you enjoy! If there are any spelling mistakes or grammar issues, let me know so I can fix them.

“Come on AllyCat we’re late sweetie” I said putting my hand out so my daughter Allyson could take my hand, but the two year old just looked down at my hand then back up at me she had tears in her eyes and she was pouting at me.  
“No dance today.” Said my two year old, her cheeks were pink and the tears were starting to fall over. I bent down on my knees so we were about face to face, I looked into my daughter’s eyes.  
“Why not sweetie?”  
“MommyBear,” she said “I mess up.”  
“Oh no, sweetie.” I said taking her hand, I knew that she fell yesterday at dance class but that means she doesn’t want to dance anymore? And keep me from my own job? “It’s okay, Ally, I mess up sometimes too. But I don’t ever stop dancing. You shouldn’t stop either.”  
Ally looked into my eyes and then nodded; I smiled and kissed her head, then stood up to my full height and Ally put her hands up waiting for me to pick her up. I did so, putting my little girl on my hip and heading out of the door of our apartment, Ally began to sing a song with no words as we walked out.  
I locked the door behind me and made my way out into the cold fall weather, I checked again to see if Ally had misplaced-or in other words had gotten rid of- her gloves, when I saw they were still on her fingers I smiled and bounced her on my hip. She giggled excitedly and smiled her wide smile at me.  
Once we made it to my car I opened up the back seat door and slide Ally in, she put herself in her princess car seat and I strapped her in. Then moved around to my side of the car and starting it up and strapping myself in and putting the car radio to Radio Disney and listen to Ally in the back singing along to a song she didn’t know the words too. That was my baby girl.  
When we pulled up to Mani’s Dance and Gym I stopped the car parking in my spot and hopped out then unbuckled Ally from her seat and set her down on the concrete she grabbed my hand and started pulling me before I could even close the door.  
“Come, MomBear, commmmme” She said pulling at my hand, I laughed and let her drag me, closing the car door with a bang. Ally started her little jog and I quickly picked her up and ran across the parking lot into my dance studio.  
When we came in Lauren was at reception desk smiling at us, her green eyes blazing into mine.  
“You’re late,” she says overly sweet, then turns to smile down at my daughter “hello Allyson” she says and Ally smiles up at her in return  
“Dance now?” Ally asked looking up at Lauren  
Lauren smiles back easily and “Go on sweetie.” She says giving her a wink  
Ally looks up at me and sings “Byeee MommyBear!” she says and runs down the hallway and opens up the door to her dance class. I smile as I watch her go in.  
Once she is gone Lauren looks at me with a smile “We’re going out tonight.”  
I raise an eyebrow at her “No, we are not.”  
“Yes, Normani, look I get it’s hard being a mom since Arin left, but come on. You haven’t been out with Ally in months.”  
“I like being home” I say “and last time I checked my choices are my choices.”  
She shakes her head “don’t go all defensive”  
“I’m not.” I say  
“We’ll talk more about this when you get back from teaching your class. I got Dinah Jane in there so they’ll be stretching.”  
I nod and turn down the hall that my daughter had turned down moments ago, going to the end of the hall to meet my class. When I opened up the door everyone was indeed stretching with Dinah in front smiling at them and telling them there doing great. This class went from ages 10 all the way up to 20 mainly because so many people requested my dance class. It was a variety of hip-hop and contemporary even some ballet. So instead of staying and working seven days a week, I have two hour classes three days a week while Ally is dance class or in pre-school.  
“Hey everybody!” I called and closed the door behind me; everyone looked up and instantly shot me smiles and hellos especially the little kids. I smiled and pulled of my own coat throwing it by the window wall and walked over to Dinah, my best friend besides Lauren who helped me start my business. She gave me a nod and when back to stretching, I joined her, she looked at me.  
“Laur tell you where going out?”  
“She wants me to go out.”  
“She will force you to go, you understand that, yes?”  
“It seems you all forget I have a daughter waiting for me at home.”  
“She can stay at your mom’s for one night. And plus when you don’t have her I do. I love Ally”  
“Just the thought of going out… I don’t like it.” I admit “I’d rather just be at home.” And sit on my bottom, butterflying my legs, until I hear the pop.  
“Well, please, go out tonight?” Dinah says looking into my eyes.  
I sigh and shake my head “Maybe for a few hours…”  
Dinah smiles at me “Yay! Now, time to work your class.”  
I nod and stand up in front of my class for the day “So, who’s ready to dance?”

 

What Lauren didn’t tell me was that she wanted to go to a club. I hadn’t been to a club since… since when I found out I was pregnant. I wasn’t even sure if could still fit into my old tight jumpsuits and dresses, but surprisingly I could. I had dropped my Ally of at my mom’s, who was more than excited to have Allyson for the night.  
“You always keep you and your daughter in that little apartment; you have to let her out more.” She said after Ally stopped excitedly speaking about how she got to spend time with ‘Grandmamma’. I said my goodbyes and kissed Ally on the head right after promising that she could spend time with Ally whenever she wanted.  
Lauren was in my apartment before I was, sitting on the sofa reading one of Ally’s Cinderella books. Lauren got me dressed in one of my old sparkling jumpsuits that was hidden in the back of closet and had a very low V-Cut that I wasn’t very okay with, but Lauren ignored my pleas to wear something else.  
Dinah came over just a little bit later wearing leather pants and a red top that showed off her delicate shoulders. She smiled when she saw me “Woo girl! I haven’t seen you dressed this night in so long! And your hair is done! You look so amazing.”  
I rolled my eyes and said my thanks, and tried to let Dinah and Lauren continue to play with my hair, which was curled and feel down to the middle of my chest.  
When Lauren finally let us go to the club we sat at down at a booth in the back, the music was blasting and I could feel it in my chest. I wasn’t feeling uncomfortable anymore and was swaying to the beat, rocking back and forth. I had been a dancer since I was about five and it was easy to get lost in the music and I was actually ready to get up and dance, when a girl with long brown hair and brown eyes to match, puffy red cheeks but clean skin that looked so smooth I wanted to touch it.  
“Oh! Guys! This is Camila Cabello; she’s one of my friends from Julliard. She is in the singer major, like me.”  
I smiled as I looked the girl over; she had a full figure and filled out her jeans. The dark color made sure her curves were clear and shown even in the dark lighting of the room. When her eyes found mine a smiled formed her lips and she sat herself down next to me, flipping her long hair behind her, I watched the movement.  
“So you’re the dancer that owns her own company? Lauren has told me a lot about you.” She leans in closer so I can feel her breath on my ear “Don’t worry though, it was all good things.”  
I pulled away and looked into the girls deep brown eyes and the glint that shined there.  
“Do you want to dance?”  
The girl, Camila, smiled again “I thought you never ask.”

***

 

I had the worst headache when I woke up, I began to think back to last night but it was all foggy. I did remember the girl I met though. Dancing with her and how her body pressed against mine and the way her hands found my hips as we rocked the music, the way she closed her eyes as she danced. It made me smile thinking back even with the aching in my head.  
I was just about to get out of bed when I heard the noise in the kitchen. Ally was still at my mother’s house, we didn’t have any pets, and so what could be making noise?  
Then came in the beauty from last, wearing one of my T-Shirts coming in with glasses of orange juice, she had a faint smile on her face.  
Damn, I thought, what did I do last night?  
She sat down on the bed with me and smiled “You didn’t have any champagne, so I made just an orange juice; hope that’s OK.”  
It started coming back then, kissing her passionately at the club, asking her to come home with me, high off of Camila and wanting her to stay with me. I remember the way she arched her back under me, and how red her cheeks got, how vocal she was last night in my bed.  
“It’s great; my daughter loves this stuff to death we need to get rid of it.”  
She smiled and sipped hers, watching me. It was silent like that for a while but comfortable, but something was nagging at me, so finally I finally gave into it “Why’d you stay with me?”  
Camila raises her eyebrows “Did you want me to leave?”  
I thought about her question, the first time I go out in months and I bring someone home and they don’t even stay until I wake up and just leave? No thanks.  
“No,” I say meaning it, “I just… didn’t expect you to is all.”  
“Well, I wanted to stay. At least until you kicked me out anyway, then it would get all awkward and we would never speak again.”  
I looked back into her brown eyes “I wouldn’t kick you out like that.” And I meant it, I remember back to times with Arin, those random nights we had before we became more than that. It was never fun.  
Camila smiled again “That’s good,” then she leaned in closing the space in between us and I could feel her breathing dancing across my lips and I shivered against it.  
“Is it OK if I kiss you again?”  
I didn’t trust myself to speak so I just nodded and she let her lips press against mine  
She tasted like orange juice and summer, I let my free hand wrap against her waist and I pulled her close, I could feel the smile against my lips. I let my lips linger on hers, a sensation of sparks took over in my stomach.  
When we pulled away her cheeks were red and she was smiling she looked into my eyes and smiled “Does that mean I can see you again? Like a date?”  
I gave the girl a small smile “I think we can do that.”  
She smiled and leaned in again connecting our lips.

 

Camila ended up staying at my apartment for a few more hours before I had to go pick up Ally, she kissed me goodbye and gave me her number then headed off. When I picked up Ally she threw herself into my arms and hugged me tight.  
“Missed you MommyBear”  
I smiled and held her tighter “I missed you too AllyCat.”  
We said our goodbyes to grandma and I locked Ally into her car seat and when we made it back to the apartment there was Lauren walking up to our door.  
Ally screamed with excited and begged me to let her out of her car seat, when I did she ran at Lauren at full speed and threw herself into the arms of her godmother.  
Lauren laughed her green eyes shining with joy as she hugged Ally back “You would think you haven’t seen me in a year.” She laughed and when Ally finally let her down she smiled up at her.  
“Play?” she asked  
Lauren smiled and nodded down at her “yes, let’s go play.” Lauren looked at me expectedly. I rolled my eyes and went to open the door and let them run in way before myself and once I made it in and locked my door they were already sitting on the floor and playing with legos. But Lauren looked up and gave me a huge smirk.  
“So, Ms. Cabello stayed the night?”  
“I’m not comfortable speaking of this in front of my daughter.” I say simply just because I don’t want to talk about it and my time with Camila.  
But Lauren gave me a dark look in her green eyes “Come on, details.”  
“It was fun, nothing too big.”  
“That’s because there wasn’t a dick in there anywhere,”  
I looked up “LAUREN language!” I snap at her, but she just gives me another smile and rolls her eyes “Nothing Ms. Allyson hasn’t heard before,”  
“But now she is old enough to repeat it.”  
Lauren responds by rolling her eyes again. “Will you see Camila again?”  
I sigh and sit down on my sofa “Maybe, I got her number, so.”  
“You better call her.” Lauren says  
I snorted but did not respond.  
“Seriously, I could see the look in her eyes. She really likes you.”  
“We had one night, how much is supposed to come out of one night?”  
“That could be your wife one of these days.”  
I snort again.  
“Just text her at least? Come on, she’ll get her feelings hurt if you don’t”  
“We just had one night.”  
“That can turn into love!” Lauren says raising her voice at me and Ally looks up at her  
“No yell!” she yells  
Lauren looks down and smiles at my daughter petting down her hair “Sorry sweetie.”  
Allyson goes back to her legos.  
“Do it sometime soon alright?”  
“Whenever I have time I will call her or text her OK? But you know I always have my hands filled, with the studio, or my baby. So if I can’t make time don’t hate me forever for it.”  
Lauren sighed “Alright.”  
***  
I ended up calling three days later when Ally was at pre-school and I had an hour to myself at home and had spent it cleaning up, but had gotten done early, there was no reason to not call her, and she had been on my mind a lot. The way her cheeks turned pink when she got over excited or insanely happy or just got caught up in her own thoughts, and the way she laughed.  
She answered the phone in a rush “Hello?” there was a beeping noise in the background.  
“Is this a bad time?” I say  
“Normani?” She says then the noise falls away “No, it’s not. Sorry, it’s just I was baking and I got a new oven and the little beeper just freaks me out, but at least I know it’s done preheating.”  
“Oh,” I say to that.  
“Yeah, so I guess I’ll be living on cake for a while.”  
“Huh,” I say “That’ll be fun”  
A small pause went over the line before Camila speaks up again. “You want to come over?”  
I thought about and checked the time, I would have to go get Ally soon, but I did have time, weighing out my options and then answered “Well, why not? You have already been to my place”  
I could hear the smile on her face when she said “I’ll text you the address.”

***

Even though I knew I would be back in time to pick up Ally from pre-school, but I still asked Lauren to pick her up for me and spend some time with her because I had somehow made plans, which never happened so Lauren was more than happy to pry Allyson out of my hands for a while.  
“You’re going to see Camila, aren’t you?”  
I rolled my eyes “I cannot confirm or deny that.” I said as I parked in front of Camila home, it was a soft yellow color and had a porch swing. It screamed home-y and happy, just like Camila’s personality. “But I have to go now OK?”  
“No, not until you tell me you’re with Camila!”  
“Love you Lauren thank you for taking care of my baby for a few hours and I’ll see in a few!” I say cutting off her protest and hanging up before she can say anymore. I turn off my car and head to the door. I knocked on the door and waited.  
A crash sounded from inside the house and a “Damn!” was yelled and then “Just a minute!” was called out and another sound came -running footsteps?- and the door swung open to show Camila, dressed in an apron and… red sauce substance was smeared across her cheeks as she looked at me a raised an eyebrow.  
“Hi!” she said, touching the top of her head, more red stuff was now in her hair. “Come in, come in.” Camila moved out of the way and let me in. I smiled softly at her and stepped inside, the scent of cake and candy hit my nose before anything else and I closed my eyes breathing in the scent.  
“How much cooking have you done?” I said  
“Well, um there are two cakes in the oven and I was making a third when… well you may as well just see it. Follow me.” she said and took my hand and began pulling me through the foyer, her living room, and then finally we rested in the kitchen I barely had time to take in how nice her house was before I noticed the mess of red on the floor.  
“What the hell happened in here?” I asked looking at the blood red color  
“I was just about to make a red velvet cake, but I just dropped the mix” Camila said pouting, I can see the tears in her eyes and a blush was creeping up her neck. She ran another hand through her hair, adding more mix into it. She sighed and the tears spilled over.  
The instincts took over then and I was walking through the mess and wrapping my arms around her midsection. Camila’s breath catches and something that sounds a lot like a chocked sob comes out of her.  
“Why am I crying over spilled mix? Because red velvet cake is my favorite and now it’s all over the floor and I’m going to have to clean it up, I hate cleaning.” Her arms wrapped around my neck and she pulled herself close to me, more than likely adding the red velvet mix into my clothing, but I didn’t mind. Camila smelled like cake and sugar and summer, and it reminding me of something like home.  
When I pulled away and looked down at the floor, I surprised myself by saying “I’ll clean it up, you have tile floor, and it’ll come right up, so there are no more needs to cry.” I gave her a reassuring smile  
Camila looks into my eyes with hers and a small smile comes across her lips “Really? You’ll help?”  
“You really think I’m going to let you just clean this up by yourself?” I give her a bigger smirk “You obviously aren’t able to do this yourself.”  
Camila gives me a full smile “Thank you!” she says and wraps her arms around me once again I laugh and hold in her close.  
When she lets me go she’s still blushing but she’s smiling, “Then I guess we should get started.”

 

We were almost done when the beeping started announcing the cakes were finished, and Camila hopped up with glee forgetting her cleaning and running to open up the oven. She put on her oven mits and pulled them out one at the time, placing them on her counter.  
I got up too and looked at the cakes, both in pans and heat radiating off them. “These look amazing,” I say and Camila laughs.  
“They don’t even have the icing yet, one is chocolate chip and the other is chocolate swirl, do you want a piece of each?”  
“Oh no,” I say shaking my head “I have a sweet tooth, but not that much.”  
Camila laughs “if cake was the last food on earth, I would be perfectly OK with that.” I smiled at her “Oh, go ahead and sit down and I’ll bring your piece once it’s iced.”  
I nodded my head and went to her table and took a seat on the side of the table. “So I thought you were one of those Julliard girls like Lauren was what brings you here to Atlanta?”  
“Family is here, and I have a bakery here Cabello Shoppe.”  
“Oh, that’s why you are so fabulous at this cooking sweets, I have never been though, if I bring sweets in the house Ally would steal them in the middle of the night” I give her another smirk  
I can hear the smile in Camila’s voice “Cooking runs in the family, my little though, she was the prodigy.”  
I lean back in my seat “Was yours singing?”  
She nods her head “You can say that, I still sing, just not as much, cooking is more my thing now. I like that I can change the basics and make it better, changing recipes and making them work for me, you could do that with music but it’s not really what I wanted to do anymore, when it became work, I didn’t want to do it anymore.”  
I nod my head “I understand that, that’s why I never went to school for my dancing, I didn’t want to not love it anymore.”  
“But you have your dance studio?” Camila says looking up from her icing.  
“Yeah, but mainly because I needed the money and my friends had been pressuring me about it” I smiled at the memories “but now, I really like teaching kids and having the gymnast kids there too, flipping around like I used too, it makes me feel good, happy, even though I’m away from Ally.”  
“Your baby?”  
“Yeah, but she’s two, not really a baby anymore.”  
“I think that’s still young.” Camila says walking over with two plates one for me and one for herself smiling down at me, soft pink frosting covering them. I let out a laugh.  
“What?” Camila asked me  
“Oh nothing, just when I was about five pink frosting was the most disgusting thing on the planet for me.”  
She raises an eyebrow, mouth dropped open in surprise. “You can’t hate pink frosting. Or at least mine, made from scratch. You’ll love it.” She sits down and hands over the piece of cake and a fork.  
I give her a doubtful look but took the fork, taking a piece of the cake and placing it on my tongue.  
Almost instantly the taste floods my mouth and I have to hold back a moan, it was still warm and soft, moist and beautiful she had given me a plain chocolate piece. I chewed thoughtfully, she was right. How could I hate this pink frosting?  
“Amazing,” I say because it’s the truth  
Camila smiles wide at me “I know.” She says again and takes a bite from her own cake.

I stayed longer than I had expected, about three hours, cleaning and eating cake with Camila. We stayed off the topic of work which I enjoyed since all of my friends were from work, I didn’t think we would have anything to talk about, and we didn’t and yet we filled up hours with conversations and laughter.  
When I had realized how late it was I jumped up off the sofa and was basically running around for my shoes  
“Woah, woah, woah, Normani, what’s wrong? What’s going on?” Camila said grabbing my wrist, pulling me back to her, she was stronger than I had noticed and I looked into her eyes and took a breath.  
“I’m sorry Camila, I just forgot I need to pick up Ally, Lauren has her right now.”  
“Oh,” Camila said nodding “but Lauren has her right? Nothing bad will happen.”  
I nodded my head I knew she was right but my heart was pounding and my throat was getting tight, I’d be feeling like this until I got Ally back from Lauren and saw her with my own eyes. How could I forget about my daughter for some girl with a pretty face that could bake?  
“I know, but I have to go get her, I hope you understand.”  
She nodded but I could see the blush coming up her cheeks and she let out a heavy sigh “Alright, your shoes are by the door, Normani stop freaking out OK? I’ll lock the door behind you.”  
“Okay, thank you, I had fun today.” I say turning and reach the door grabbing my shoes and slipping them on. Then I put my hand on the door and turned back to look at a red face Camila. I gave a smile then left the apartment, not daring too look back.

 

***

I was gald when it was finally the weekend, it would be just me and Ally for the day, which started early since my princess was an early bird. She woke me up singing a song that sounded a lot like “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” at seven o’clock in the morning sitting on my stomach.  
“Hey, AllyCat.” I said smiling at her “Ready to start the day?”  
She nodded excitedly “Bacon!”  
I smiled back at her “Bacon it is!” and sat up, Ally pushed herself off me and sat down on the bed next to me, staring at me intently until I groaned and got up off the bed picking up my daughter with me and heading into the kitchen where I laid her down on the floor so she can play with the toys she left there yesterday as I got to cooking.  
I finished within the next hour some bacon for Ally and myself and her baby food to go with it, I sat her down in her high chair and began to feed her any myself, she didn’t fight me on it, Ally eats almost anything (including her toys which I know have to make sure are too big for her to put in her mouth so she doesn’t choke on anything) so she happily giggled and ate her food (and the bacon she was too young to have yet, but let her have anyway).  
After breakfast I sat down on the sofa burping Ally and letting the another Disney move play softly in the background, after that I let her go back to her toys and dancing around. I was just about to sit down on the sofa when there was a knock on my door, I sighed and moved to the front door of my apartment, not surprised at all to see Lauren and Zayn her boyfriend of two and a half years behind her. She smiled giving me a kiss on the cheek and then called out “Where’s my god-baby?” Ally responded with “HERE!” at the top of her voice. Zayn gave me a cheeky smile and I let him step inside, because he still respected bounderies unlike his girlfriend.  
Lauren totally adored Zayn and I totally knew why, the man was beautiful, in that sexy misunderstood werewolf kind of way. He had black hair that was almost never done, tattoos covering more than half his body, most of them he drew himself. Beautiful light brown that I sometimes thought were hazel. He was also pretty quiet, he didn’t really speak unless spoken too, which was completely different from Lauren, who could never shut up and was always correcting people, no matter who, when they used improper English when her first language was Spanish… that I still didn’t understand.  
Zayn sat himself on my sofa and gave me another smile; I sat down next to him.  
“How are you feeling Zayn?” I asked  
He shrugged “Pretty good, thinking about getting a new tattoo.”  
I rose an eyebrow, intrigued “Of what this time?”  
He looked at Lauren who was sitting down on the floor of the living room with Allyson  
At first I didn’t understand, but then it clicked “Lauren? You’re getting Lauren’s name?”  
Zayn gave me another smirk “No, I want, her picture.”  
My eyes widen again “Ohmygod, you’re going to her face on you?” I whispered, it was something that Zayn would do, but I still didn’t believe it.  
“Yeah, I drew her so she would kind of look like a cartoon, and I think I’ll get it on or right before our anniversary, it’ll be her present.”  
All I could do was smile, Zayn was such a good person and he had one of the biggest hearts. “That is so sweet, god I wish you were my boyfriend.” I said, making Zayn laugh before pulling him in my arms and laughing with him.  
“Hey! Don’t go trying to steal my boyfriend before I try to steal your daughter.” I heard Lauren’s voice, I pulled away from Zayn before giving him a wink.  
“Oh, no Lauren, Zayn here is a real man, he can’t be stolen.” I looked back at to see him blushing under his growing beard.  
“So why are you guys at my house again?” I ask as Ally crawls into my lap, I instantly wrap my arms around her middle and hold her close, smelling the baby shampoo.  
“There is nothing wrong with wanting to see my best friend Normani!” Lauren snaps at me but is smiling “and I missed you, I haven’t seen you much lately.”  
“You see me at work.” I said  
“For like two minutes before you leave to teach class.” Lauren says getting up and wrapping her arms around Ally and I. “I love you guys, I can’t go so long without you.”  
I laughed but hugged her back the best I can. Lauren pulls me away and gives me her sneaky smile “And then Zayn is the lovely eye candy.”  
“Hey,” Zayn says with a frown but no conviction in his voice so we just smile and back at him and giggle.  
“Love you Zaynie” Ally says from my lap.  
Zayn smiles down at her “I love you too. You’re my favorite.”  
“Hey!” Lauren and I said.  
***

I was in the middle of giving Allyson a bath when my phone started to ring, I took my hands out of my baby’s hair and I answered the phone, suds getting in my ear  
“Hello?”  
“My friends and I are going out, do you want to come? Lauren and Dinah will be there as well.” It was Camila on the other end of the phone  
“I can’t, I’m sorry. I’m with Ally right now and I can’t go anywhere.” I said putting my phone in-between my ear and shoulder and going back to washing Ally’s hair as she played, giggling in the water.  
“Oh come on it’s just a light dinner, Lauren says your mom will be happy to take her for a few hours” a rustling on the phone erupted and then Lauren’s voice filled my ears “I already called her, be expecting her before six which is when you will be meeting us at the Cabello diner.”  
“You mean bakery?”  
“There’s more than one Cabello food place in Atlanta,”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah, do you really never look around your city?” Lauren laughed “Now, seriously tell Ally she’s going to be getting a visit from grandma, it’s been a week since you’ve seen Camila and she misses you!”  
“Hey!” I heard Camila in the background  
“You know it’s true!” Lauren calls out and then comes back to the phone “OK? Is that alright? Well, it doesn’t matter because you’ll be coming anyway”  
I sighed “I really don’t want-“  
“Shut up,” Lauren said I can hear her smiling “You’re coming out tonight and your mom is on her way to hang out with Ally at your place, okay love you bye!” and then she was off the phone. I sighed dropped the phone onto the carpet and looked at Ally who was still playing in the bubbles.  
“How would you feel if grandma came and took care of you while I went out with some friends?”  
“Ally come?” she asked looking up at me.  
I sighed “No baby… you stay here with grandma.”  
“Grandma?”  
I nodded “Is that okay?”  
Ally smiled “Great!”  
I smiled at my daughter and kissed her head “Okay then, now, close your eyes time to wash out the shampoo”  
“Yay!” Ally said then snapped her eyes shut.  
I laughed and poured water under onto her hair.

***

The Cabello diner is something I past every single day and never bothered stepping inside, which I should have because I as soon as I entered the smell was heavenly; burgers, fries, milkshakes, and sweets, I took a deep breath and smiled. I looked around for Lauren, Dinah Jane, or Camila but no luck. So I looked around and pulled off my coat and started walking around the large dinner. I couldn’t find them and I had actually dressed up putting on my favorite black skinny jeans and a red top that didn’t have any baby food stains on it, I brushed my hair and had decided to wear it down instead of my usual pulled back ponytail.  
“Normani, over here” and I looked around to see Camila with her hand up waving at me in a booth. I smiled and headed over, Camila stood up and gave me a hug, wrapping her arms around my neck and I hugged her back, she smelled like cake and cookie dough.  
“You look amazing,” She says and sits down; I sit down next to her. Dinah was on the other side with Lauren and Zayn, and a blonde boy I didn’t know and on my side of the booth there was a boy sitting down next to Camila with curls that danced around his head he had smoky green eyes, full lips and a beautiful smiled. I found myself smiling back.  
“Okay, this is Niall, on this side,” Camila said pointing at the blonde boy. “And the beautiful boy next to you is Harry.”  
“Hi,” I said to the boys who all smiled back and said there hellos.  
I was surprised on how easily the conversation was picked up within all of us; we spoke about tattoos, art, music, culture and the reissuance man before even getting the food we ordered. But as time went on I started to notice things like how closely Camila was sitting next to Harry, or the way he would move a piece of hair from in front of her face, putting an arm around her shoulder and she would move even closer to him, leaning against his chest and smiling brightly up at him and the way he would kiss her forehead. I could tell Lauren and Zayn were both noticing me notice it as well. Lauren looked at me raising an eyebrow at me, then turned to get Harry’s attention.  
“Hey Harry,” Lauren said her voice strong in everyone’s ear “Are you dating anyone?” I could see it in the way she was squinting her eyes and how she had one eyebrow raised, this wasn’t a real question, she was testing him and if he said the wrong thing she would take him down. It’s always been the way she handle things and I admired her so much for it.  
“Well…” Harry begins he looks around the table “there is someone I want, but I’m not sure how she feels about me.” He gives a small smile his deep voice was rich and made me want to melt inside but it was also very obvious he was referring to Camila and now, I have had enough, I pulled out my phone and checked the time, sticking the last of my pasta in my mouth and swallowing it whole, then standing up.  
“It’s pretty late guys, I better get going.” I say pulling on my coat and stepping out of the booth, “I had fun today, Lauren, Dinah. Call me later?” I asked looking at them.  
“No problem, give Allyson a kiss for me.”  
I nodded and headed toward the door, I was about to push it open when I heard Camila call after me “Wait!” she said and she grabbed my hand, I looked back at her and tried to smile, but even I could tell it must have been a grimace. So I pushed the door again and made my way to my car, Camila hot on my heels.  
“What’s making you leave so quickly? I thought we were having fun.” She asked then hopped so she was in front of me stopping so I couldn’t move anymore without running her over, which I could probably do but I deiced against it.  
“You were having fun; you and Harry were having lots of fun.” I said and took a breath in the cold air; it puffed and turned white out of the air.  
“But, I mean, weren’t we all having fun? Normani, it looked like you were having fun, and I wanted to spend more time with you.” Her cheeks were turning pink once again and I couldn’t tell if it was because of the cold or because she was nervous. But one person I know she isn’t nervous was around was Harry, I could see it in the way she leaned up against him, and the way she smiled up at him, how much she liked him, how much she wanted to be with him.  
“Yeah, it will probably be the last time too, I have a daughter to take care of and I can’t be spending so much time with people who don’t really have anything to do with my life or my daughter’s life, so it was nice meeting you Camila.”  
Camila was looking down at the ground and her cheeks and her neck were flaming red “What are you saying? You don’t want to see me anymore?”  
“Don’t worry; just spend time with Harry, you guys we’re all over each other so you’ll forget about me in no time.” I moved past her, hopped in my car and drove away.

 

I called off my classes for the first day; wanting to stay home with Ally for as long as I can, her preschool was only every other week and she didn’t have any dance classes so my days were surrounded with my daughter’s laughter, baby food, and Disney movies. My phone kept going off the whole day, calls from Lauren, Camila and Dinah, but I didn’t bothering answering them, I had set it up so another dancer and one of my friends Leigh-Anne could come in and teach my classes for me for the week, I know they wanted to know why I wasn’t coming in but I just told Leigh-Anne to say I wasn’t feeling up to it. And after that I turned off my phone, I didn’t know how long this would last, this silence and just being with my daughter. Almost always there was someone else in my apartment, rather it was Lauren, or Dinah, my mom, Zayn, or some other friends who come and go, but unless we were sleeping there was always someone else around.  
This beautiful silence was over when there was a banging on my door, I groaned as I got up, popping my back as I went, I opened the door before looking out and when I looked to see who it was surprise took over and I rose an eyebrow.  
“Zayn? What are you doing here? Oh, come in.” I said stepping over to side letting him inside, Zayn gave me a pretty smirk and moved inside making his way to my living room on the east side of my apartment, he sat down.  
“Ally?” He asked for arms out waiting for her, I rolled my eyes and gave him a smile  
“Ally,” I called  
Then came Ally crawling out of the kitchen, she looked up at me “MommyBear”  
“Guess who came to see you?” I said stepping out of the way for Ally to see him  
“Zaynie!” She called and tried to hop up but ending up falling on her booty, but Zayn just laughed and got out of the sofa and ran over to her and picked her up, ruffling her hair. He smiled deeply at her. Then he turned to me, putting her on his hip he turned back to me.  
“I got it,” He said smiling at me, I raised an eyebrow  
“Got what?”  
“The tattoo.”  
I rose my eyebrows and gasped running over him to him and jumping up and down “Let me see it!!”  
He smiled and nodded “Alright, alright.” He sat Ally down on the floor even though she pouted, but I handed her some legos and she settled down.  
Zayn pulled off his jacket to revel his tatted arms, dusted over with colors; red, blue, green, everything. It was always beautiful and amazing and entrancing; but what really caught my eye was the new tattoo, he was right it did look like a beautiful cartoon, Lauren was in a beanie smiling just a little, he even got the fact that the right side of Lauren’s upper lip was bigger than the left side. It was beautiful, it was all black and white expect her fierce green eyes laid down in black eyeliner that she always wore. It was beautiful and I couldn’t stop staring.  
“It’s amazing, really, it’s great Zayn.”  
“It’s still healing,” he said “I have to keep it dry so it doesn’t wash away and a little sore, Lauren hasn’t seen it yet, but she will tomorrow.”  
I smiled up at the taller man “She is going to love it.”  
He nodded “I really hope so,” then he bent down so he was eye lever with Ally “Do you like it?” He asked then pointed to the new tattoo.  
“Coloring on body!” she replied with “Beauty-ful!”  
I laughed and looked down at my daughter, bangs in her eyes, smiling brightly and her brown eyes glowing, she was so happy.  
Zayn and I laughed and both kissed her forehead, then Zayn looked up at me with honest eyes “You know, you can’t keep avoiding Lauren and Dinah and… Camila…”  
I stiffened up “I’m not avoiding my friends.”  
“No, you stay cooped up here because you love this tiny little apartment and your phone has been off all week, yeah, totally not avoiding us.” He said but was giving me a smile “Do you know what I went through to get over here not with Lauren? She hit me really hard on the shoulder.”  
I threw my head back and laughed “She’s always been heavy handed”  
“I know that now.” He said laughing with me, once the laughing died down Zayn went back to looking at me seriously.  
“Fine, fine! I’m going back to work on Monday so no more avoiding people.” I say throwing a hand up in surrender.  
Zayn smiled “Thank you,” then he came over and placed a soft kiss on my forehead, I smiled at the contact and looked up at him. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”  
I nodded “Sure, Zayn, anything you want.”  
He patted my shoulder and started heading towards the door, but stopped when Ally called out “ZAYNIE!”  
He stopped and turned around “What is it princess?”  
“No bye?” she said from the floor arms out, waiting for a hug.  
“Oh! Of course!” He was with enthusiasm and jogs over to her, picking her up in one motion until she laid on his hip and he was giving her a wet kiss on the cheek, she giggled and giggled.  
“Bye Ally,” he said  
“Byyyyyyye Zaynie” she replied with then put her arms out for me to grab her, I complied to her wimps and grabbed a hold of her and walked Zayn to the door. He said goodbye one last time and headed out.  
“Ally like him, my favorite.” She said simply, I turned to her looking amused  
“Hey!”  
***

Later that night Ally wouldn’t sleep, begging for me to let her stay up, she was supposed to be sleep by 7:30 but it was running closer and closer to 8:30  
“Ally, no you have to go to bed,”  
“Nooooo! Ally stay!” She said stomping, the two year old wasn’t playing games tonight, I sighed and picked her up, she had tears in her eyes and was red in her pale face. My daughter looked nothing like me, light brown eyes and her skin tone was a soft caramel, her bangs were falling into her eyes and I was going to have to cut them soon.  
“Alright, Allyson,” I say exasperated, I laid her on my hip, but is it OK if I just hold you?”  
Ally looked at me, in my eyes actually, as if she could tell I was trying to play a trick on her.  
“OK.” She says rubbing at her eyes, she yawned, I knew she was tried so I didn’t understand why she was wanting to stay up, she put her head on my shoulder and I kissed her forehead, sitting down on the sofa with her and putting on Princess and the Frog I was humming along to the music and rubbing her back, and sooner rather than later she fell asleep.  
I moved slowly and as quietly as I could so she wouldn’t wake up, I moved towards the back of the apartment and took her to her room putting her in her crib, Ally sighed as I laid her inside and grabbed onto her teddy bear, cuddling it to her side. I smiled and wished I had a camera to take a picture of her. I quickly moved out of the room closing the door slightly behind me.  
I was just about to lie back down on the sofa when there was a knock on my door, I stifled a groan but got up to get the door anyway, it was probably Lauren, because apparently she couldn’t wait until Monday to talk to me.  
I pulled the door open almost begging it not to make a sound. But I made a shocked sound when I saw who it was at the door looking at me.  
“Camila…” I said and let out a breath “What are you doing here,”  
Instantly her neck turned a soft shade of pink and I remembered how much I loved when it happened.  
“Well, um, see, you wouldn’t answer my calls and I really wanted to talk you. You left so quickly at the diner…”  
I sighed and leaned against my door “You just looked really comfortable with your friends, and Harry. I was just ready to go.”  
“See, I would just nod to that and say OK, but then you didn’t answer your phone when I called-”  
“I turned my phone off for a few days.”  
“A whole week? It seemed like you were avoiding me Normani and I just want to know why.” I could see the tears in her eyes and the way her voice was starting to waiver, I was hurting her and I had no idea. She grabbed my hand which had been wrapped around my mid-section “What did I do?”  
I sighed; my reasoning for cutting her off now seemed foolish. “It’s just... you looked like… you and Harry, I just felt really dumb, it’s obvious how you feel about him. Like he was your boyfriend, it was like a punch in the stomach.” I felt stupid explaining this to her, so stupid.  
She looked deep in my eyes and nodded “You have nothing to worry about, he’s my best friend and I’ll admit that, and we had something, a very long time together but, I swear it’s over now, and plus…” she said and slowly a smiled began to creep on her face “he asked out Dinah Jane a couple days ago.”  
My eyebrows went up again “Really? Wow. That’s so great,” I said, I didn’t say that’s so great because now we can go back to what we were, because that felt like too much, “Do you want to come in? I would feel awful apologizing and keeping you out in the cold.”  
Camila smiled her brown eyes starting to shine again. “I thought you never ask.”  
I smiled back at the beauty and stepped out of the way for her to come in. She was wearing a red trench coat, skinny jeans, and thick boot heels, she had on eyeliner but it was all smudge.  
“I’m sorry Camila, I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions about you and Harry, I should have asked, if it helps though, I thought he was nice.”  
She smiled “It does help; he’s been my closet friend since my first year in high school.”  
“Woah,” I said “long time,”  
Camila smiled and walked a little closer to me as I closed the door behind her, “Remember, we didn’t speak for a week, a lot of time was missed and we need to make up for that time.”  
I raised my eyebrow again “And how do we do that?”  
She walked even closer “By kissing, I deserve it you know,” then she whispered against my lips “You made me cry, and I really, really like you, I can’t believe you would do that too me.”  
“I’m sorry Camila…” I said my voice was breathy and hot, I wanted her lips on mine, I needed it.  
She smiled and leaned in more letting her lips dance on mine “Apology accepted.” And then her cherry-tasting lips were on mine once again. I kissed her deeply letting my hands travel down to her waist and then I brought her closer to me not daring to break away from her lips, Camila was moving, pinning me against the wall. I moaned.  
I don’t know how long we stayed like that, kissing and holding each other, but as soon as Ally called out “MommyBear!” as a whine I pulled back breathless.  
“I’m sorry,” I say “but duty calls.”  
Camila catches her breath and starts falling back into her normal skin tone, which was a warm tan. She nods then looks up at me “Can I meet her?”  
“My daughter?”  
She nods again as Ally calls for me again.  
I shake my head “Not tonight OK? She needs to be getting to sleep right now.”  
Camila sighs a little but nods her head “OK.” Her head hangs down a little so I give her another smile  
“But soon, if you want to meet her.”  
She perks up again and Ally yells for me again, “Coming baby!” I yell out, then turn back to Camila  
“Will you call me tomorrow?” she asks me.  
I smile at her “I promise I will” and lean in one more time pecking her lips and smiling against her lips.  
She leaves the apartment right after and I close the door, locking it, and running to my screaming baby.

 

It was right after class and I was waving everyone goodbye when Camila came in. I was running my fingers through my hair and my breathing deeply. I looked over at the long haired brunette and smiled at her.  
“Sometimes I forget how sexy your body is,” she says smiling at me. I look back at myself in the mirrors. My brown chocolate skin and eyes, brown hair that came down to the middle of my chest, lower cheekbones and too strong of a chin. But my body was one thing I could agree on, I had long thick legs, which were being shown off under my short-shorts and I was wearing a matching black sports bra, showing off my slim stomach, were the six pack was coming in, almost right after Allyson was born I made sure I was going to get my body back.  
I smiled at Camila “Ha, thanks Mila.” I said throwing my hair up in a ponytail and walking over to her, wrapping an arm around her waist and planting a kiss on her lips. She smiled against my lips, she let hers linger on mine before pulling off, but stayed in my arms.  
“So, I was thinking that maybe we could go out to dinner? My treat?”  
“Ooo.” I said, teasing “Like a date?”  
Camila laughed along with me but the blush was across her cheeks again “Yes, like a date, come on, it’ll be fun.”  
“As fun as I believe it will be, I can’t.”  
Camila pouted and snuggled closer her lips pressing on my lips “But you promised, more time together.”  
I smiled at the feeling “I know I did, but I need to know ahead of time, Ally is with me right now, I have no one to watch her.”  
“She can come with us” Camila said speaking softly.  
I stiffened “What?” I asked her  
“She can come with us, I mean, it won’t be a sweet romantic date or anything, but I’m totally OK with her coming… if you are.” Camila pulled back and looked into my eyes and smiled at me “I do want to meet her, Normani.” She said running a hand through her hair.  
To be completely honest I was surprised, I knew she wanted to meet Allyson but take her with us? My daughter and I didn’t know many people, just close family and friends and her dance friends of course she doesn’t go to play dates or anything like that, she has too many tantrums around people Ally doesn’t trust. I have no idea how she will react to Camila, if she’ll like her, or if she will be standoff-ish. She is either insanely friendly or marks someone off as the enemy within seconds.  
“I don’t think-“ I didn’t have time to finish my sentence before Lauren and Ally walked in hand in hand.  
“Hey Normani… Camila” Lauren said smirking, but I couldn’t look at her, I was looking down at Ally who was looking at me with wide eyes and then she would look at Camila then back at me. I put my hand down and called her over to me “AllyCat…” I said  
She looked me in the eyes and I nodded my head over, she ran over to me grabbing my hand with one of hers and then tugging on my shorts. I bent down and picked her up, she rested on my chest with her feet tucked up under her.  
“This pretty girl right here is Allyson Brooke Hamilton, Ally, this is Camila Cabello,” I bent to my daughters ear “I’m not sure if she even has a middle name, she must not be as cool as you.”  
Ally giggled and looked over at Camila with guarded eyes.  
“Hey!” Camila said “I do have a middle name!”  
“Oh really?” I say playfully.  
“Yes, it’s Camila, my first name is Karla, but I must have a super cool middle name if I use it instead of my first one.  
Ally giggled again and put one hand up in defeat “Okay, Karla you win.”  
Camila scrunched up her face but was smiling, it made Ally let out a real laugh.” She let go of my neck with one hand and I tightened my arm around her mid-section.  
“Nice to meet you,” Ally said, and I smiled, she likes her.  
“Nice to meet you too Allyson,” Camila said “I was just telling your Mommy that we should all go out and get something to eat”  
“MommyBear!” Ally said in her explaining voice, Camila returned that with a funny look.  
“She calls me MommyBear, not Mommy, she is very serious about things like that,” I said kissing my daughter’s cheek.  
“Oh,” Camila said nodding her head “Well, I was telling your Mommybear we should go get some food. Is that OK with you Ally?”  
Ally put her head on my chest and thought about it for a minute before perking up and smiling “Yes! We go!”  
I smiled and looked at Camila again “I guess were going.”

***

Camila and Allyson picked McDonalds, I apparently, had no say on where we go, and I was just the driver.  
Camila had actually decided to sit in the back of my car with Ally and spoke to her excitedly, it was so easy and so soft the way she spoke to her, Camila also spoke with her hands making everything seem bigger and brighter. Every time I stopped the car I was turning around to look at them talk to each other.

When we finally got to Mickey Ds, I actually wasn’t surprised when Camila got two kids meals. One for Ally and one for herself, but I quickly decided to order for myself and got a burger and fries, when I tried to pay for my food Camila fought me on it.  
“I said my treat remember?” Camila said not backing down  
“I remember!” Ally cried from my hip, I gave her a mock-frown  
“Traitor” I said and Ally just smiled at me  
When we got our food Ally begged for us to eat inside, closer to the play area. Camila and I both surrendered after one pout.  
We sat down eating in silence, mainly because Ally and I were both too busy stuffing our faces to do anything else, all the food we ate was homemade, or for Ally mainly baby food, her teeth were still sensitive and was still teething so when we could sink our teeth into burgers and French fries that weren’t good for us we hopped on the opportunity, since it didn’t happen much.  
Camila just sat, eating slowly and quietly watching us, and when she wasn’t she was making funny faces at Ally who laughed at everyone, spraying half chewed food everywhere but we didn’t really care. When Ally finished she threw off her shoes and ran to the play area slide.  
“Be careful!” I yelled after her, but she wasn’t paying enough attention to listen to me, just running wildly on her chubby legs. I smiled after her then turned to Camila.  
“So, how are you so good with kids?” I asked before picking up another fry.  
“Well, I have a younger sister, she’s sixteen now, but with the five year age difference she was always pretty small, and I would treat her more like she was my daughter more than my sister. I love her, she’s great.”  
I nodded my head as she went on about her sister, sofi, she sounds like a sweetie  
“So… can I ask you something?”  
“Sure,” I say  
“Where’s Ally’s dad?”  
I stiffened but forced myself to relax “He left, when she was about six months old, she doesn’t even remember him, no phone calls, no messages, just a lousy check every few months… he was my husband.”  
“Oh my god…” Camila said “I’m sorry.”  
“It’s fine now; it’s been a year and a half, I’m OK. We hadn’t been together for long time before Allyson; it wasn’t some deep connection we had, just a short relationship and too much sex, to be honest.” My voice was hard, rough it wasn’t that I wasn’t over Arin, but he had disappeared and I had no idea where he was for a while, but the thing that hurt me the most was that he hadn’t seen his daughter once since he left.  
Camila put her head in her hands “god, I feel awful I’m so sorry I brought it up.”  
I nodded and tried to smile “It’s okay, Camila, I should probably should talk about it anyway.”  
She nodded and went back to being silent sipping on her chocolate shake.  
Ally came running back to us a few minutes later, cheeks pink and huffing out breath but smiling brightly “Fun slide!” she yelled up at us I smiled at her  
“So are you ready to go?”  
Her eyes went wide “Nooo!” and then ran away, right back towards the slide. I laughed and watched her go, then turned back to Camila.  
“So what about you what’s your family like?”  
“Well,” she says putting down her shake “I was born in Cuba and a lot of my family is still there, like cousins, aunts, uncles. But my mom and dad and sister are all here, at first we were in Mexico, but we moved here to the United States where my grandmother said she always wanted to go before she died. So that’s how we ended up in Atlanta.”  
“And you’re friends?”  
“Well, you have already met Niall and Harry, we are insanely close the three of us, we were like a pack, you never saw one without the other.”  
“That’s so nice, that’s how I feel with Lauren and Dinah.”  
Camila smiled “I can tell, when Lauren told me about you a lot when we were in school, and she was not joking when she said you were insanely beautiful.”  
I smiled and rolled my eyes, “Damn that, Lauren. Thank you though.”  
We continued talking for another half hour when Ally came back rubbing her eyes and walking slowly over to us, she looked up at me and rose her arms. “I tried,” she stated.  
I smiled and pulled her up onto my hip “It is past your nap time, ready to go?” I asked her and she nodded then put her head on my shoulder  
“Love MommyBear” she said and I smiled back at her before answering “Love AllyCat” then I turned to Camila whose big brown eyes were staring at my daughter with a small smile on her face. “Is it alright if we go?”  
Camila nodded and stood up, throwing all the trash away and looking back at Ally “Did you have fun miss Allyson?”  
Ally nodded “had fun! Lots!”  
Camila smiled “I’m glad,”  
We headed out back to my car where I slipped Ally back into her car seat making sure she is strapped in before heading back to the front, where Camila was sitting unlike the first time we rode together, it made me smile.  
“I had fun with you today Camila” I said to her and gave her a smile, which she returned.  
The ride back to the car was silent if you don’t Ally singing along with the radio but it was comfortable and I felt relaxed.  
I got out of the car with Camila when we made it back to her car which was still parked at my dance studio. Her cheeks were pink from the breeze and she was running a hand through her hair, she leaned up against her car door and looked at me with a small smile.  
“So, this date wasn’t a total train wreck … right?”  
I laughed and nodded “Right.”  
“So… will see each other again, another date?”  
“If that’s what you want.”  
Camila smiled and took my hand “I, for sure, want to go out on another date with you again.” Camila closed up the space in-between us and pressed her lips to mine, I slouched against her lips and wrapped my arms around her tiny waist keep her close and let the butterflies in my stomach go free.  
I pulled back, breathless and smiled, putting my forehead on Camila’s.  
“I gotta go,” I whispered.  
She nodded “I know,” she whispered back  
I pressed my lips to hers one more time and let them linger there before letting her go and walking back to my car, with a smile plastered on my face.

 

“It’s official, you are going to have a day out with your friends and you’re going to love it,” My mother says pulling Ally out of my arms “Go get dressed, I am more than happy with staying here and taking care of Ally for the day.”  
“Mom, no, I don’t want to go out today. I’m fine with staying in with Allyson.”  
“I, am not.” My mother says and begins doing the evaluator to Ally. Picking her up high over her head and bending her knees, then going back up straight legs, making Ally giggle every time. “I want you to go out and have fun, it’s another Friday night and you’re not doing anything but staying home with your baby? You’re not even 25 and you’re a house wife to your daughter.”  
I sit down on the bed and put my head in my hands “There’s nothing wrong with that.”  
My mother sighs and sits down with me “Yes, it is.” She says softly “You shouldn’t of grown up so quickly, but you had too. So I am willing to take this beautiful baby off your hands for one night for you to be a kid again, or at least a teenager. Don’t take this from me Normani.”  
I look at my mom and her pleading eyes, I know she doesn’t want to be like this, just a mom, and dance teacher, she wants me to love my life, which she doesn’t think I do. I love Ally, I love my dance studio, and though it may not come out as smiles and laughter I do love what I do, as a mother and as I teacher.  
“Okay, mom.” I say and sit up “Just for a few hours.”  
My mom smiles and kisses my forehead “Thank you sweetie, now, I think I’ll take Allyson back to my place with me, so you can get ready in peace, if that’s alright.”  
I nod “Sure mom, whatever you want.”  
She smiles and again and looks at Ally, who has been silently sitting in her lap “Sleepover at Grandmas?”  
Ally, nods excited “Yes! Yes!”  
We all hopped out and headed to the closet to grab Ally’s coat, hat, and gloves, because she doesn’t need to get a cold and it’s not even winter yet. As soon as we put the gloves on her little chubby hands, she pulls them off and looks at her grandmother with her big brown eyes. I give my mother a look.  
“Don’t spoil her, let her know she needs to wear her gloves.”  
My mom bends down and faces Ally. “You need to wear your gloves, sweetie.”  
“No! They scratchy!”  
My mom sighs and looks at me, I shake my head “She has to wear them mom.”  
She looks back down at Ally “Well, you need to wear them you don’t want cold hands.”  
“Cold hands over scathed hands!”  
My mom sighs, and then brings a smile on her face “I know! Why don’t you wear those out but we can go to the store and get you some new ones that aren’t scratchy!”  
Ally jumps up “Yay!” and then grabs the gloves from the floor and puts them on  
“I said, don’t spoil her mom.”  
“I’m her grandmother,” she says and kisses my forehead “I’m supposed too.”  
***

“I want to go out,” I say, on the phone with Lauren going through my clothing for something nice to wear.  
“What? You do? Where does Ally want to go?”  
I shake my head “No, not Ally, Ally is with my mom I want to go out.”  
I could almost hear her raising her eyebrows “Where do you want to go, miss I Want To Go Out”  
“Let’s go back to the club I met Camila at.”  
“Really?” Lauren says again voice full of disbelief.  
“Yea and can you call everyone to be there? Make it a big deal?”  
“I’ll call everybody, sure.”  
“Well I have to get ready but can you and Dinah meet me here at my apartment, I’ll drive us there.”  
“Sure… can I ask you what came over you? What makes you want to go out?”  
“Ally’s gone and my apartment is too quiet without her.”  
“Hmmm,” Lauren says, I clearly had given her enough to chew on “We’ll be there in about half an hour OK?”  
“Alright, I say.”  
We hang up and I go back to exploring my closet for something decent to wear.

 

The club was in full swing when we got there, Camila, Niall, Harry and Zayn were all already there waiting for us in a booth laughing and drinking. When I saw Camila I smiled, which she returned and pulled me over to sit with her.  
“You look awesome” She says and plants a quick kiss on my lips.  
“Thank you, you look great.” Camila was in a tight red dress and black heels, her eyeliner was black, but when the light hit it you could see the glitter within it.  
I said hi to everyone else and smiled when I saw Dinah and Harry sitting next to each other; he was speaking something into her ear and making her smile shyly.  
As conversation went on I ended up in a conversation with Niall about how he had no game at when it came to girls.  
“You just need to loosen up! Then I pulled out a piece of candy from my bra (my stash for Ally whenever she cries in public and I need her to calm down) and had it over, it’s a jolly rancher.  
“Take this, and go to the girl at the bar, see her in the black dress? Long brown hair?”  
Niall looks over his shoulder “Yeah, I see her.”  
“Walk over to her like you’re going to give her the candy and at the last minute pull back and ‘oh, I’m sorry, you don’t need this… you’re already sweet’ and walk away, I promise she will call you back and want to talk to you.”  
Niall debates this then shrugs and gets up. I smile and cheer him on.  
I watch him as he goes, walks up, and pulls back, he turns and walks away, I wish it wasn’t so loud so I could here, but I see her mouth “wait!” and he turns around with a smile on his face and walks back to the girl. I smile at my work.  
“That was so sweet of you,” Camila says and leans on my shoulder. I smile down at her  
“I try, I try.”  
Then suddenly the song that was blaring through the speakers changes and the beat drops and suddenly “He Said, She Said” is going out through the speakers.  
“Ohmygod!” Camila yells (right in my ear) and looks over at Harry “Did you request this?!”  
He gives her a wide smile and nods  
“We have to dance. Now.” Camila says getting up and grabbing Harry’s hand and pulling him towards the dance floor, leaving me behind  
I look over at Dinah Jane who face is a mix of blank and surprise and anger, eyebrows raised up into her hairline.  
“Did they just…” she starts voice flat.  
“Yep.” I say back, voice just as flat.  
We just sit there and stare but halfway through the song and the grinding; I had enough and got up. I look over at Dinah and say “I’m fighting for what I want, so if you want Harry, I say come with me.”  
Dinah nods her head and gets up following me as we hit the dance floor. As much as I hate to admit this was one of my favorite songs when it first came out and my hips were swaying to the music as I worked my way toward the middle of the dance floor, I could feel the base in my chest and I could feel people watching Dinah Jane and myself, but I ignored them and kept on moving.  
Camila arms were wrapped around Harry’s neck and they were both red and breaking out in a sweat, their bodies rocked together along with the beat and Camila through her head back, eyes closed and mouth opened slightly. I could feel the anger burning up inside me, more than the heat of the club and the bodies bumping up against me as they danced.  
“Hell no,” Dinah said and looked at me one more time before walking up to the pair and pulling on Harry’s shirt, turning him around and pulling his arms off of Camila and bringing him to her, when Harry noticed it was her he gave her a wide smile and instantly turned her around so her back was to his front and he began dancing with her. Dinah Jane rocked with him, but her lips were in a tight line and her I could see the anger in the way her hips moved. I turned to Camila.  
“Really,” was all I said, I could even tell if she could hear me over the music, and if she did she ignored it and gave me a wide smile  
“Dance with me!” She yelled over the music and started swaying to the beat again. I just stood there and looked at her; did she not realize what she just did? Leaving me to dance with someone who seemed a lot like an ex-boyfriend?  
I started dancing, instead of with her I danced next to her swaying my hips and moving my arms and dancing a little wildly just letting the beat take over and closing my eyes.  
This was going to be my one night off; I really didn’t want Camila dancing with Harry ruin it.

Six good songs later, my body was covered in sweat and I breathing heavy, I needed a drink, so I headed to the bar on the other side of the club leaving Camila flipping her hair to the music. I sat down on a stool waiting for the bartender to come to me, when he did he smiled, he had beautiful brown eyes, full, pink lips and stubble running across his face, I felt myself smiling back at him.  
“What can I get for you?” He asked  
“Just water will be good.”  
The bartender smiled again and turned around bending down to grab a water out of a cooler. Then came back up and handed it over.  
“Here you go, two dollars please.”  
My eyebrows raised “Two dollars? For one water?”  
He nodded “These prices are always insane, you know what? For you? On the house.”  
“Really? That’s so nice of you thank you, I say.” I gave him another smile and took a sip from the cool water. “What’s your name?”  
“Liam,” he says nodding his head to the music  
“It’s nice to meet you, I’m Normani”  
“That’s a different name.” he said looking over to see if anyone else was at the bar when there wasn’t he put his chin in his hands and looked at me.  
I laughed “I know right, Normani Kordei, I love it but I still don’t know the story behind my own name.”  
He laughed and gave me a smile “Either way, it’s a good one.”  
I laughed as well “there will never be another Normani.”  
He claps his hands “You’re right! So then when I ask for your number then you will be the only Normani Kordei in my phone.”  
I sat there bewildered by Liam’s boldness. “Woah, you are so smooth” I clap my hands “I really did not see that coming” I laughed then gave him another smile “but because you surprised me, I think I will give you my number… if you ask of course”  
Liam gave another smile “I think will most likely ask for your number.” Then he paused and seconds went by ten… twelve… sixteen…  
“Hey, Normani Kordei… can I have your number?” he asked finally and I threw my head back and laughed  
“Well of course, Liam.”  
Liam pulls out his phone and hands it over I put in my number and text myself so I have his.  
I stay at the bar for two hours just speaking with Liam, and it looks like this night wasn’t a total bust.

 

Just a few minutes later I go back to my table and look to see Lauren being held by Zayn, eyes closed and leaning against him with what looked like all her weight.  
“Whoa, what happened to her?”  
“Just partied to hard,” Zayn says smirking “She just fell, she was dancing one minute and the next she’s falling to the ground asleep.”  
I laughed “Wow, OK. Guess it’s time to go home huh? I should go tell Camila and Niall and everybody.”  
Zayn shakes his head “No, Camila and Harry already left, and Niall is still talking to that girl you got him too. And Dinah… I have no clue where she is.”  
My expression went flat. “Camila left… with Harry? Did he bring her here?” My voice was cold and even in this heat I could feel the cold shiver of jealously covering me from head to toe  
“She came with us.” Zayn said  
I put my hands on my hips “Wow, OK, nice move Cami.” I say and roll my eyes “Well, tell Niall I say bye, I’m gonna call Dinah later tonight, but I need to tell my new friend goodbye, Alright?”  
Zayn nodded “Let me get her out of here.” We said our goodbyes and headed in different directions, I made my way back to the bar where Liam’s was waiting on someone, when he was done he came back over to me.  
“You’re back already? Need another water or just came to see my face again?” he says giving me a smirk.  
I roll my eyes playfully “As if, no, I just came to say goodbye, I didn’t want you looking for me all night.”  
“I wouldn’t be,” Liam says smiling again  
“I could feel your eyes on me from the other side of the club Liam.”  
Liam puts his hands up in defeat “OK, OK. You got me, so you’re leaving?”  
I nod my head “I just wanted to say bye.”  
“Well then, goodbye Ms. Kordei, parting is such sweet sorrow.” He smirks again  
“Oooh, Shakespeare. Nice touch.” I say  
“I try, I try, thank you.”  
I’m turning around headed for the doors when Liam’s voice travels to my ears “You’ve got my number! Don’t be afraid to use it!”

Camila texted me three days later. Three freaking days later.  
You leave with you ex-boyfriend that it looks like you still have feelings for and wait three days to send a lousy: Hey! I miss seeing you! Let’s hang out today?  
I ignored the text and stayed in bed, Ally wasn’t crying or playing, or yelling and I was so glad, only the moments when she was asleep I got my peace and quiet and I wanted to enjoy it for as long as it would last.  
After another half an hour of silence I got up to satisfy my hungry stomach, I headed to the kitchen and pulled out pancake mix, eggs, bacon and hot dogs and started cooking.  
I was about half way through when “MommyBear!” was called out, so I flipped the bacon over and went on to Allyson’s room, where she was standing in her crib arms up and waiting for me to pull her out.  
“Hey, pretty girl.” I said smoothly.  
“MommyBear,” She said, quieter this time I smiled and pulled her out and taking her into our small kitchen sitting her down in front of her toys so she could play as I cooked.  
I was just making the scrambled eggs when there was a knock on my door, I sighed, I didn’t have many days off so I liked to spend them with Ally as much as possible I didn’t need another interruption, it will burn my eggs.  
So I jog to the door and through it open to see Lauren, Zayn and Niall all at my door. I tried to smile but I turned around to quickly for them to see running back to the eggs before yelling “Come in, guys! Like you don’t already”  
After the eggs were finished and I could hear Ally happy yells I realized that Niall, had also come over, and Niall was in the room with my daughter. So as quickly as I could I started bringing all the food into the dining room and sitting down on the table and pulling out plates for everyone, after a while of having Zayn and Lauren come over randomly I started making a lot of food every time I was in the kitchen. Usually before I could even finish cooking they would be over playing with Ally and waiting for me to feed them, in a way I was a parent to three kids, not just one.  
“Foods ready” I called and Lauren’s loud over-the-top yell of glee hit my ears and I rolled my eyes as everyone came in from the living room. Ally was in Zayn’s arms but was playing with Niall’s hair, he was looking at her with his light blue eyes and making silly faces at her, it was cute. I was surprised how she seemed to warm up to him so quickly.  
Everyone sat down at the table and started grabbing at the food that was set in the center of the table. The conversation died as everyone began to eat, I wasn’t much of a cook but when it came to making breakfast everyone wanted a piece.  
Once I was finished stuffing my face (for the moment) I turned to Niall.  
“Niall, don’t get me wrong I love seeing you, but, why are you here?”  
Niall gave me a huge smile “Oh! Because remember that girl from the club? Yeah, well I got her number and we have a date planned next weekend, and we have been texting since we met.”  
I smiled at him “Ohmygod, that’s so great! Tell me everything, what’s her name? What does she do? Does she still look pretty not under the moonlight?”  
Niall raised an eyebrow “She’s not a werewolf, I’m sure she even looks better in the daylight.” He laughs and then goes on “Her name is Barbra and she’s a model.”  
“Like a legit model? Or just a stripper?” Lauren says, bold as ever that girl.  
“What? No, she’s in magazines and everything, she didn’t tell me her last name though, so I can’t Google her. She wants me to get to know her before I see her career.”  
Lauren and I exchanged looks and then turned back to Niall, I was about to say something when Lauren beat me too it.  
“Hmmmm, I’m not sure if that’s legit.”  
Niall rolled his eyes “She actually laughed at my jokes guys! Don’t make this a bad thing for me! She laughed! At all of them!”  
We all laughed at Niall’s expression, and laughed harder when he turned red.  
I put my hands up in defeat “OK, OK.”  
After that the conversation stilled again in a warm silence and I started eating again and making sure Ally had enough food while she sat in Zayn’s lap.  
“So, have you talked to Camila since the club?”  
I stiffened and so did Lauren, which wasn’t surprising I had told her about what happened when she sobered up and she was a little more than pissed at her friend.  
“No, I haven’t she just texted me today, but I haven’t responded.” I said and then stuck another fried hot dog in my mouth so I wouldn’t have to answer another question.  
“Well why not?” The question was from Zayn, for as long as I knew Zayn he always had his heart on his sleeve, he always cared more about the people around him than for himself and when I had days where I was falling apart and upset he would always be sent for my rescue, when he asked me questions that made me feel uncomfortable it wasn’t to make me feel that way, it was because of concern and because I knew this and knew that I could answer him easily, looking into his eyes.  
“It’s like when were together it’s fine, but as soon as Harry comes around… it hard to compete with him, he’s cute, he’s sweet, and Camila seems to be wrapped around his finger, I don’t want to compete with that, hell, I shouldn’t have too. I haven’t dated since A-L-L-Y was born,” I said spelling out her name so Ally wouldn’t understand I was speaking about her. “I don’t need my first relationship since then to be hard; if I ever date again I want it to be easy.”  
“But easy is boring.” Zayn says and everyone at the table agrees nodding their heads in agreement. I rolled my eyes.  
“But that is what I need guys, simple. A-L-L-Y makes my life crazy enough.”  
“I’ve known Camila for a long time; I think it will be good if you give her another chance. Don’t worry, I know it looks funny but Cami and Harry are really just friends.”  
I sighed and leaned back in my chair “It never looks that way.”  
He nods his head “I know, I know, but seriously. Give her the chance, I see it in the way she looks at you, it’s different than the way she looks at Harry, she likes you a lot. Probably more than she should.”  
I listen to his words and nod my head and for some reason… I believe him.

I want you to come over, I have the house to myself.  
Ooo, really? No baby?  
She has been kidnapped by Lauren.  
Ooo, well give me about ten minutes and I’ll be there.  
Can’t wait.

 

Camila was on me in a second wrapping her arms around my neck and placing a kiss on my lips and I couldn’t help the smile that was lasting there.  
“I missed you,” Camila says against my neck and places a kiss there as well. When I pull away I see her beautiful brown eyes and pink lips and cheeks.  
“I bet you did,” I say with a little more snap than I had insisted and Camila just raised an eyebrow and gave me a funny look.  
“You had left me, at the club, when you left with Harry. Not even saying goodbye.” Camila instantly turned a brighter shade of red than I had thought was possible but she kept her mouth shut, like she knew what she did was wrong.  
“Is there anything I need to worry about with you and Harry or are you just friends? Cami, please don’t lie to me, if there is you can tell me.”  
Camila shakes her head “He is one of my closest friends, but that’s it, we don’t have anything more than that, please believe me Normani... please”  
I smiled at Camila, after talking to my friends and hearing there words about Camila and me, I felt a lot better about her and Harry, I knew there was a story there but one that had ended a long time ago. So, I placed a kiss on her cherry lips and I could hear the surprised gasp from her and it made me smile against her lips and I was trying hard to contain a burst of laughter so I pulled away and let it out.  
Camila looked up at me surprised at my actions she rose an eyebrow.  
“I trust you, Camila, and I believe you, and…” I said placing my lips on hers “I missed…” then I put my lips back on hers one more time “you’re kisses.”  
Camila moans against my lips and wraps her arms around my neck, I let one arm travel to her mid-section and the other to her to her coat, grabbing at the buttons.  
I pulled my lips of hers and went to her neck, breathing in her scent and smiling against her before kissing her there. “Too much clothing… we should get this off.”  
“Oh, um, OK, yeah, yeah, that works, let’s do that.”  
I pull Camila out of the doorway and into my bedroom and I sat myself down on the bed, when Camila walked up to me I put my hands on her hips brought her closer, she bent down with my movements and kissed my deeply, a soft, high pitched moan coming out of her mouth and her hands found my hair, pulling me closer.  
I moved back so I was laying on the bed with Camila on top of me, my hands traveling up her shirt and touching the cold, bare skin, Camila gasped in my mouth at the contact and then moaned again, pulling her lips off of mine and planting kisses down my cheeks and to my neck, I close my eyes and moan at the feel of her tongue gliding against my neck, my nails digging into her back, she sucked in breath and continued on.  
When Camila pulled back for breath she smiled at me, “I’m glad we’re OK.” She says then sits up straddling my waist and pulling off he T-Shirt and she kisses me again, softly this time, with more compassion than ever before and I suck in breath and try to give her back everything she was giving me.  
When we pulled back again, I sat up and pulled off my shirt as well before leaning against her ear and whispering to her “We’ll always be OK, Camila.”

Hours later, I laid with Camila, blissed out and my head in her hair while she giggled and tried to turn in my arms but I held her tight, not letting her move.  
“I really like spending time with you, Normani.” She says still squirming but not complaining, so I keep my hold on her.  
“I like when you spend time with me.” I say back and kiss at the nape of her neck, and she giggles again.  
“So… does that mean that…” Camila says but trails off, I wait for her to continue, I can’t see her cheeks but I can tell by the way her neck heats up and turns red she’s blushing, but she doesn’t say anything.  
“Does it mean what?” I ask her when she makes it clear she won’t be continuing her last statement.  
Finally I loosen my grip on her and she turns around so she’s facing me, still on her side and she tries to give me a smile.  
“I’m just hoping when I ask you this, I won’t be making anything bad.”  
“Then what are you asking Camila? What could make this bad?”  
“I was just going to say that since we went on a few dates… that maybe that meant we- that you were my girlfriend now.”  
I rose an eyebrow “Do you want me to be?” I ask, it’s not really a challenge but I can’t seem to understand why she would want to be tied down to me, because if she was tied down to me, she was tied down to Allyson.  
Ally, crap, how would she feel if I got a girlfriend? I would be spending less time with her and then she would be put off more to my mom, or Lauren and Zayn, and I didn’t want that for my daughter I wanted her to know me as her caretaker, the person who loved her the most.  
Then I was stiffening up with Camila still in my arms, I know why she was so afraid to ask me.  
“I don’t want to get attached to you if you’re not attached to me.” Camila says again  
I sigh and pull Camila into my arms “I won’t be able to spend time with you, my daughter, she is my first priority.”  
“I know,” Camila says “and I’ll be here with both of you all the time, if you let me.”  
“I would let you…” I say quietly against her forehead.  
“Why am I worried all of the sudden?”  
I pull Camila even closer and smile into her hair “You shouldn’t be, I’m your girlfriend now, you have nothing to worry about.”  
Camila backs up enough to look into my eyes “Really?”  
I smile and nod my head at her “I’m your girlfriend, Camila.”  
And suddenly neither Camila nor I can stop smiling and looking into each other’s eyes. Not saying anything but just looking at each other.  
The spell is broken when Camila gets up straddling my naked body with her, she gives me a sly smile and her blush is spreading. “Do you know what girlfriends get?”  
I raise an eyebrow, but my body was already anticipating what she could give me “What can girlfriends get?”  
She bends down so her lips are brushing my ear; her voice is deep and husky in my ear “Pleasure.” Then she pulls back giving me a wicked smile and then kissing down my body I don’t even bother holding back the moans that each kiss, lick, and bite give me.  
And Camila gives me exactly that; pleasure.

 

An hour later, Camila and I were sitting on the sofa curled up watching some movie I didn’t know the name to when my phone rang.  
“I’ll be right back” I say and get up and walk to my phone which I had left in the kitchen, I answer the call without even looking.  
“Hello?” I say  
“Hey, Normani Kordei?”  
“Liam?”  
“Yep. So you save my number and don’t do anything with it? That’s not very nice.”  
I laugh “Sorry, Liam, I got caught up.”  
“Doing what? Not thinking about me?”  
“Something like that.”  
“Well since I got you on the phone I will get straight to it, I want to ask you out on a date Ms. Kordei, will you please not put me to shame and say yes?”  
I’m in disbelief, one of the main reasons I had given the man my number was to get make myself feel better with Camila dancing with Harry, and now, Camila’s my girlfriend and I can’t do anything expect let him down easy.  
“Ummmmm…. Actually I can’t, I’m in a relationship now.”  
Liam’s sigh is loud and audible even through the phone “Well, damn, I should called sooner.”  
I smile “I’m sorry Liam,”  
“It’s alright, well either way, I want to hang out with you, even if on a friend level.”  
“Really?”  
“You seem really cool, Normani, yeah, I want to know you.”  
“Well I want to know you too Liam- I actually don’t know your last name.”  
“Payne.”  
“Oh, well, Mr. Liam Payne, I would love to be your friend.”  
“Good.” It sounded like Liam was about to say more when a loud scream hit the my ears through the phone, I frown and move the phone back from my ear for a minute, I wait until it calms a little bit.  
“Sorry, Lou just woke up.”  
“Lou?”  
“Yeah, um, I’m sorry but this is a too job hand, can I call you later?”  
“Yeah, it’s no problem.”  
We say our goodbyes and I head back into the living room and sit on the sofa, wrapping my arms around Camila’s mid-section, and stick my head in her hair.  
“You alright?”  
“Yeah, I’m good.”  
“Who was it on the phone?”  
I smile and kiss her neck softly “A new friend.”

 

Later that night Lauren, Zayn, decided to come back and Lauren had also decided on all of us having a sleepover.  
“We never see you anymore! We’re either with Ally, or just you! Now it will be all four of us!” She said kissing my cheek and pulling out her sleeping bag, when I gave Zayn a fleeting glance he just shrugged and mouthed “go with it.” And so I did, Ally, who had been spending the day with her favorite aunt and uncle was running up to me and wrapping her arms around my leg.  
“MommyBear!”  
“Hey sweetie” I say, bending down and I grab her by her mid-section so she jumps up and puts her feet under her and I hold her tightly, she sticks her head in my hair and rubs her face in it.  
“Missed you,” she says, muffled against my hair, and I smiled and hold her a little tighter.  
“I missed you too, how about tomorrow we spend the whole day at the park? Just you and me?”  
“Yeah!” Ally says and she pulls back from my neck and kisses my cheek.  
We make our way to the living room where Lauren and Zayn are sitting in there sleeping bags talking quietly, Ally and I would sleep on the sofa (or Ally on Zayn’s chest. She liked doing that.), I put the Princess and the Frog and Ally instantly put herself against my chest and watched along, with her breathing on my neck, I didn’t mind though. It made me relax and lean against the sofa.  
I must’ve been drifting in and out of sleep, because I opened my eyes to stare right into Lauren’s eyes.  
“Hey…” she said quietly “Did you have fun with Camila today?”  
I smiled back at her and nodding, not wanting to interrupt Ally’s sleeping.  
“I’m glad, I want you to be happy, and I like her for you.”  
“Thanks,” I say just as quietly  
“Remember when we use to have sleepovers as kids? We would stay up all night and talk about music, boys, and dancing around to Beyoncé? I really miss that.”  
I nod “Me too, we will have to have a day to do that again.”  
Lauren sighed “we just have so many responsibilities now, today is one of those days I miss being a kid. When he had no idea how much a car payment was or when we didn’t need jobs, our parents tucking us in at night, and now look at us, you’re a mom yourself, and Zayn and i… were thinking about being parents as well.”  
My eyes widen “REALLY?” I mouth at her, mainly because if I had actually said it, I would have screamed it, waking up Ally and Zayn.  
She nods and smiles “I think Ally needs a cousin.”  
I couldn’t say anything I just smiled.  
“And the tattoo he got of me… I know he’s the one. He’s it for me.”  
“I’m so happy for you.” I say and move an arm from around Ally and reach out to my best friend. She takes my hand and moves over so she can sit on the sofa with me, I move an arm so she is under my shoulder and she leans in to me and Allyson holding us both close.  
. “We love you too, we all do.” I say and kiss my best friends forehead.  
I close my eyes and lean my head against Lauren’s and listen to my daughter’s breathing, and my best friend’s heartbeat.

 

I was with Ally in the park swinging her on the swings when a little boy runs up and pulls on my leg.  
“Mani!” he says and when I look down my eyes widen in surprise  
“Louis!” I say and grab at the back of Ally’s swing so it will stop and I move so I can pull her out “Allyson! Look who’s here,” I say putting her down on the ground next to Louis.  
Louis was in my dance class on Thursdays with Ally even though they were still young they always had a blast doing little routines with Louis, I was starting to believe that Ally had a crush on the boy.  
“Friend!” Ally called and wrapped her arms around him, he was a little taller than her and he hugged her back just as tightly, I smiled down at them, Ally looks back up at me when they pull away “Double swing?” She asks me pointing to the bigger sit-down swing where she could sit back against it without worrying about falling out. So I bend down to face both of the kids.  
“So, how about it? Want to swing?”  
They both jump up and down excited screaming yes, and please. I just laugh and walk over with them and pick both of them, setting them down in the seat and strapping them in, after I step back and start to push them up, and up.  
There laughs and giggles filled my ears.  
“LOUIS!” A voice calls and I look around trying to find the voice, but I can’t see anyone, I move away from the back of the swing and look around to see where the voice is coming from  
“Louis! Where are you?”  
“Here’s over here!” I call out when I finally see the figure looking around wildly. I stick my hands up and point to the swing. The guy must understand because he’s running over towards the swing. I move back when I see him coming and stop the swing.  
The man continues walking over to the swing and looks down at his son “Don’t run away like that! I didn’t know where you were.”  
Only then I got a good look at the man, I raised an eyebrow  
“Liam?”  
He looks over at me “Normani?”

 

I look down at Louis and my daughter, Louis turns pink. “Sorry, Daddy.” He says and walks over to his leg giving it a gentle hug, Liam just sighs and pats his head  
“You scared me, is all.”  
I stand there dumbfounded. Liam had a son? A son I knew? How did I not notice sooner?  
I pick up Ally and turn to Liam again, “Nice to see you Liam.” I say “This is Allyson… my daughter, say hi Ally.”  
Ally looks down at Louis and then up at his father “Hi,” she says and then hides her face in my neck  
“Wow,” Liam says to me and lets out a shaky breath. “Um, didn’t see that coming,”  
I nod completely understanding what he means “Right?”  
The laugh we share is rather forced and we can’t look at each other, it stays like that for a while before I decided to put on my big girl pants.  
“OK, um,” I put Ally down next to Liam and look at the both of them “Why don’t you guys play on the slides? And then MommyBear and Liam can watch you guys while we sit down.”  
They both enthusiastically and start running towards the slides, I grab Liam’s hand and we follow behind our kids, I try to ignore that he entwines our fingers together and the sparks that come from it.  
The kids are running around the slides before even climbing up and Liam and I sit down and watch them play and laugh together before turning to each other.  
“So, we both have kids.” I state and smile at Liam  
He nods “Yeah, guess we do, I would say something like sorry I didn’t tell you but we did met at a club.”  
“Yeah, no apologies needed.” I say and then run a hand through my hair “But what I don’t get is why I don’t ever see you at my dance studio,”  
“That’s how you know Louis?”  
I nod “He’s in my Tuesday classes”  
“Oh, see his mom has him on the weekdays I usually only have him on weekends and every other holiday.”  
I nod “Oh, well that’s why I never see you then.”  
“I’ll have to stop by and see you now, so that’s you daughter?” He says pointing at the kids in front of us “She’s beautiful, and has your eyes.”  
I smile “Yeah, thanks, Ally and Louis get along great, it’s actually kind of crazy how they’re always together.”  
“Like us,” he says and turns to me giving me a smile, and I can’t even stop myself from smiling back, I let out a little laugh.  
“Yeah, something like that Liam… so can I ask about Louis’ mom?”  
Liam nods “Yeah, we had a pretty bad breakup, so instead of just trying to get me for child support, which I would have paid, no problem, but instead she went for custody rights, said I wasn’t a fit parent, when the social workers couldn’t come up with anything to help her accusations they decided that it would be best to let her have partial custody just to shut her up.”  
“Damn,” I say before I can help it, but Liam just shrugs and then I lean back against the bench “Well… at least you weren’t married for a year before he suddenly decided he couldn’t do it anymore, left without a goodbye and leaving the papers on his pillow instead. Then, you find him living it up on a beach with a whole bunch of girls, because, that sucked.”  
Liam looks at me eyes wide “My life sounds like a walk in the park.”  
“Yeah… I usually win this.” I say and give him a smile which he returns and then begins to clap his hands  
“Someone should make that into a movie.”  
“Oh, actually it’s a novel, Universal wants the movie rights, but I’m on the fence about it.”  
Liam raises his eyebrows into his hairline and I break into a smile and suddenly, were laughing too loud and bending over and cracking up about it all, which I haven’t been able to do in a long time, I don’t remember laughing this much about my past situation, usually everyone just gives me looks of petty, That heartbroken girl who fell in love too fast and got heartbroken, but here laughing about it all with Liam, felt so… refreshing and so nice that it was bringing the painfully tears in my eyes and my stomach and it’s insane.  
When we finally stop and come too we look at each and I know I’m giving off a small smile, because I was laughing like a man with tears streaming down my cheeks but Liam just returned the smile and rubbed the tears away giving off warm burst of heat where his fingers use to be.  
“It’s really nice to know that I can hang out with someone who gets it.”  
I nod “Me too, no looks of petty.”  
“No, being scared to say the person’s name”  
“Staying away from the idea of marriage,”  
“People not understanding you can’t go out with them because you have a child to take care of, and then being pissed about it for weeks on end.”  
“RIGHT!” I say and I stick my hand up for a high five which Liam takes and then grabs onto my hand.  
“Finally! Someone who gets it,”  
“I’m someone who gets it.”  
And then, before I knew it I’m in a tight hug that smells like the forest and man and holding on just as tight and snuggling close just lying there against him feels right. I let my head sit there on his chest and I let my mind go blank.  
“Daddy! Look!” There’s Louis voice, and Liam pulls away to look at his sun and I turn out of his arms and look at Louis who has his hands up in the air as he goes down the little slide, once he comes down all the way Liam and I both clap our hands dramatically and tell him how wonderful he is. He smiles and runs over to Ally and then they go down the slide together.  
We all act like that for the rest of the day, Liam and I watched the kids and talked about life and more family stuff, keeping it light and fun and we even got up to play tag with the kids, it was something different than what I ever had before, being so young with kids, none of my other friends had kids, I was alone in going to the park with Ally and knowing if she was old enough to handle normal food and not baby food, or if I should buy her a new crib yet.  
But Liam knew as much as me, if not more and could help me out, he made that clear, and now we know were not alone in this kids-that-have-kids-club.  
We had each other.

“Normani, I miss you!” Camila says, we’re on the phone while Ally is having her nap, I smiled.  
“I miss you too,” I say  
“So what did you do all day?” Camila asked  
“Well, I had breakfast with Lauren, Zayn, and Niall, they all came over to hang out with me, which was sweet most Sundays are saved for Allyson but I didn’t mind, then I went to the park and I met Liam there and his son Louis.”  
“Who’s Liam?” Camila asked.  
“Oh, remember when we all went out to Netco? I met a guy there named Liam, we exchanged numbers and turns out, he has a son and I got to meet him at the park, well, I actually already met his son, because he takes my dance classes and it’s so-”  
“You got someone else’s number while being out with me?” Camila asked I could hear something in her voice, something I haven’t heard before, something deep and dark… I had a guess on what it was.  
“Are you trying to be mad at me about this?” I asked eyebrow rose up high with surprise.  
“Yes, I mean, we had fun that night and it was like we came together-”  
“Camila, you do realize that you may have been there at the club with me, but you came with someone else, and left with someone else? A someone else that is a guy you used to date from the past? And when you were dancing with him before that, it felt like you chose him over me? And you want to be mad at me for meeting a friend? Who is only a friend because I just got into a relationship with you? Wow, nice, Camila.” I said, standing up and pacing “Camila, I don’t think you understand how much I didn’t like seeing you with Harry that night, and when you were dancing with him… you should have been dancing with me, because I’m apparently the one you want to be with since I’m your girlfriend now.”  
The other end of the line was silent; I paused for a moment and then continued.  
“You really must not understand, I only saw you guys together a few times and it hurt me each time because of my feelings for you, I don’t even know how strong my feelings are for you, but god, they are there and god, Camila I want you to be my girlfriend, I want to be yours. But seeing you with Harry hurt my feelings, because I want you to be mine.”  
“I am yours.” Camila’s voice is quiet  
This time I’m silent on the phone, but I stop pacing.  
“I didn’t realize how uncomfortable you were about Harry.”  
I sighed, “I didn’t really tell you.”  
More silence fills the phone.  
“I can’t be mad at you for hanging out with Liam… you can be mad at me about Harry though.”  
“I can’t be mad that you have this… thing with Harry, I would just rather not see it anymore… if that’s OK.”  
“That is totally fine, no more Harry, Normani, and I.”  
A small chuckle falls from my lips  
“I still feel weird about this conversation…”  
“I know… Camila, I think we just had our first fight… and it wasn’t even that bad.”  
I can hear the smile in her voice “Yeah… I guess you’re right.”  
“Is it weird that I miss you now more than ever? Even though your own the phone with me.”  
“Actually… I’m outside your door?”  
“What?” I ask, but I’m already getting up and heading towards my door.  
“Yeah… I hope it’s not too much.” I hear, but I’ve already put my phone down by the door and I had thrown it open, wrapping my arms around Camila and sticking my head in her hair breathing her in and kissing at any skin I could reach, and Camila’s giggles fill my ears.  
“Hi,” I say as I place little kisses at my neck  
“Hey, did you miss me?”  
I nod against her hair “So much.” I say, before pulling back and grabbing her hand pulling her inside of my apartment, closing the door behind her and pulling her as quietly as I can to my bedroom. I turn back to Camila and unbutton her coat; once I pull it off I give her a smile, placing her coat on the floor.  
“Come snuggle with me,” I say and lay down on the bed.  
Even in the dark lighting I can see Camila’s blush as she climbs in the bed in front of me, I pull her close to me by her waist, then sticking my face in her hair, letting her cherry scent wash over me; I kiss at her skin one more time and hold her close.  
“I’m sleepy.” I say aloud  
“Then go to sleep, Normani… I’ll be here when you wake up.”  
I smile against her skin and pull her even closer. “Okay.”  
“Okay.”

A few hours later while I was lying around with Camila under my arm and Allyson on my chest watching another movie when my phone rings, I sigh and pull myself away from the two girls and answer the phone.  
“Hi mom,” I say  
“Baby… I need to tell you something…” My mother’s voice fills my ears and instantly I can taste dread on my tongue and that nasty feeling of fear running through me.  
“What is it mom?” I ask  
“Your sister is in town… and she wants to see you.”  
“Shit.” I said, not even trying not to swear.  
“Baby… I know what happened between you and your sister wasn’t good, but it seems like she wants to make amends with you, don’t shut her out again.”  
“What she did to me was wrong. I don’t even know if I can talk to her without being…”  
“Normani Kordei.” My mother says her voice stone hard.  
“Yes, mama,”  
“Just call Arielle, OK? Give her a call.”  
I sigh and just run a hand through my hair “OK… I can do that. Later though, I’m with Ally and Camila now.”  
“Who is Camila?” My mother ask  
“Oh my god. I haven’t told you about that yet? Well, um can I tell you about my girlfriend later?”  
“Your girlfriend? You’re dating someone and didn’t tell me? Normani Kordei Ha-”  
“Sorry mom, I have to go, bye.” I say stopping the call immediately and making my way back to my girlfriend and my daughter who were snuggled up on the sofa.  
“Hey girls,” I say sitting down and pulling them both into my arms, I wanted to be happy and have that feeling of comfort but the dread of my sister being back was too strong for it, Camila noticed right away.  
“Hey… what’s going on?” Camila said turning around so she could look at me.  
“My sister is back in town.”  
“You have a sister?” Camila said eyebrow raised.  
“And a brother, lots of cousins, a lot of them cut me out of their lives when I got pregnant.” I said truthfully, ignoring the burning sensation in the back of my throat bringing up my family, it had been almost three years since they cut me out of their lives and I had in returned the favor, no calling, texting, email, or anything. And now, my older sister wants to come back and my life? She wasn’t even there when my daughter was born.  
I was telling Camila all this and running my hands through Ally’s hair, only then when a tear fell onto my hand did I realize I was crying.  
“Hey, hey, hey,” Camila says moving in my arms, pulling my daughter out of my arms and siting her into Camila’s lap “don’t cry… it’s OK… I know that must have been hard for you to go through… it’s alright… please don’t cry.” Camila says and begins wiping more tears away and Ally looks up at me with a question in her eyes.  
“MommyBear…?” She asks then reaches up trying to touch my face; I bend down for her and place her hand on my face.  
“Sorry baby… I’m…”  
“Hey, it’s OK,” Camila says looking at me and placing a hand on my shoulder “if you don’t want to see your sister then that’s OK, you don’t have to do anything.”  
I shake my head “But I want too. I miss her; I haven’t seen her at all, in years. It’s just… I’m scared about why she wants to see me, she had all this time to change her mind and she hasn’t, why is she changing her mind now? I just don’t understand, at all. I want to know why she wants to see me, but if I do see her and get my hopes up I don’t know what the hell I will ever do.”  
“MommyBear, no cry” Allyson says and gives me a large smile, showing off her little teeth and I let a small laugh falls from my lips and I kiss my baby’s forehead.  
I nodded again “OK… no cry, Ally, I’m sorry.”  
Ally smiles up at me “Yay, MommyBear!”  
I laugh and then look up at Camila “Sorry you had to see me like this,”  
“It’s totally fine… It makes me feel like we’re getting closer, I mean, you’ve only been dating for a few days, officially and I know I really like you so… I think it’s good we’re getting closer.”  
I smile “Yeah… it is better.”  
“Remember, we’re better together.”  
I laugh, and lean over my daughter and place a warm kiss on my girlfriend’s lips, the warm feeling finally sinking into my skin and my tears were finally fading away.  
“Thank you for this… it means a lot to me, I haven’t had anyone in my life like this in a long time and with you here like this… it’s really good.”  
Camila’s smile is intense and beautiful and I couldn’t help placing my lips on hers again and letting my tongue slip through her lips and tasting every bit of her mouth, only being brought back to reality when Camila’s mouth slips away from mine and she gasped. “Hey!” she says but she’s looking down at Ally who is laughing uncontrollably.  
“Allyson, did you hit her?” I ask my daughter putting on a stern voice, but Ally just looks at me and laughs harder not trying her mouth, “No hitting Allyson!”  
“Sorry MommyBear.”  
“It’s OK… but I think it is time for you to go to bed Allyson.”  
Ally pouts but moves out of Camila’s arms and into mine, I pick her up and start heading towards her room, Camila following on my heels which I don’t mind too much.  
I lay Allyson down in her crib and kiss her goodnight smiling and looking into her beautiful brown eyes, my daughter giggled.  
“Night MommyBear… night Mila” Ally says in return, I look over at Camila who is smiling down at my daughter and Camila bends and kisses her head.  
“Good night Ally Brooke. I’ll see you soon.” She says and heads out of the room.  
“Sleep well Ally; call me if you need me alright?”  
“Yes, MommyBear, love you.”  
“Love you too,” I say and turn out of the light and slip out of the room, keeping the door open so I can hear her if she calls for me, Camila has her coat on and is waiting by the door.  
“You’re leaving?” I say even though I know it was bound to happen, but I keep pouting until Camila comes to me and kisses me softly.  
“We can hang out again soon, I’ll be working at the bakery until about five o’clock let’s do something afterward? “  
“Um, I have a late night dance class for the kids; we have a dance recital coming up on Friday.”  
“Oh! Can I come?”  
“Yes you can come; I was just about to ask you.”  
Camila smiled and wrapped her arms around my waist and pulled me in, kissing me deeply. I breathe against her lips and sigh and keep Camila close running my hands down her body.  
“OK, I need- I need to go before I try to have sex with you, and your daughter is here and I don’t want to scare her for life, OK, OK, bye Normani. See you soon.” Camila says and then kisses me again and leaves out of my apartment leaving with only butterflies in my stomach in her wake.

 

I actually wasn’t surprised when Liam came to pick up Louis, he was a little early but we were wrapping up and the kids were a little overstimulated with the buzz of their recital that was going to happen on Friday, so I just smiled at everyone and yelled out “OK guys! That’s it for the day; you guys can go ahead and wait for your parents in the lobby!”  
All the kids started running out and giving me hugs and giving out hugs as it go, once most of the traffic is gone Liam comes in with Louis on his hip and he gives me a warm smile.  
“Normani Kordei!”  
“Liam Payne!” I yell back and throw open my arms, Liam comes in a gives me a hug which I return and take a deep breath of Liam, when we pull back Liam puts Louis down and he runs over to Ally who was sitting behind me.  
Liam and I sit down on the wood floor and Liam looks around.  
“So this is your place?”  
I nod “Yep, my pride and joy besides Ally.”  
“It’s really nice I wish I would have come in sooner,” Liam says and then looks at me “You alright? You’ve got bags under your eyes.”  
I looked away “Um, yeah, I’m OK, not great though.”  
Liam scoots a little closer to me and takes my hand “Do you want to talk about it Normani?”  
I looked into Liam’s dark brown open eyes, I could see the care lying there and it broke me down, instantly I was talking about Arielle, my brother, my cousins and all the family that cut me off when I found out I was pregnant, and the tears were clouding my eyes but I couldn’t stop.  
“They just left they didn’t call, they didn’t write, hell; they didn’t even send a post card. Arielle ran off to New York to follow some dream that I don’t even remember what it was, it’s been that long and it was like I was nothing because I was going to have a baby, but look at her.” I say turning my head to where she was singing loudly and playing with Louis “Does she seem so wrong? And it wasn’t like I wasn’t married, they liked Arin but they didn’t like what he did to me, so they cut me off too? Left me with nothing? Even my mom was sour with me for a while.”  
My hand was wrapped in Liam’s and his other hand was moving in comforting circles around my back and I leaned my forehead against his and closed my eyes.  
“And now she just wants to come back and ruin everything, I was finally OK with the solitude, I stopped calling, stopped writing, stopped sending emails and now-” my words broke off and a sob erupted form me.  
“Shhh, shhh, it’s alright” Liam said and pulled me into his arms holding me close, I buried my head in his shoulders as I cried, he rubbed my back and rocked me back and forth soothing me, I could still hear Ally and Louis singing somewhere close, oblivious in their own fun, which I was grateful for.  
When I calmed down Liam pulled away and looked me in the eyes.  
“I know it’s tough for you babe, but call her, see what she has to say, yeah? And if it’s not what you want to hear it doesn’t have to go any further than that, just call her, yeah?” Liam gave me a little smile “You can do it here, right now, I’ll be right here with you.” Liam says and for emphasis he squeezed at our entwined fingers. “We can be in this together.”  
When the words left his mouth I was hugging him by his waist and holding him close, I hadn’t even know Liam for long and here I was openly sobbing into his shoulder.  
“Thank you Liam, it means so much to me.” I say pulling away and pulling my eyes away “I don’t think we’ve even know each other for a week,”  
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s because we’re connected.” Liam says giving me a funny smile, which makes me laugh “Now, call Arielle, see what she has to say, I’m right here.”  
I nod and pull my phone out of my pocket and start dialing the number that my mother had given me for Arielle.  
One ring, two rings, three…  
“Arielle Hamilton,” a voice says, one so familiar it makes my heart break.  
“Hey… Arielle, it’s me, Normani” I say giving Liam a look, he raises an eyebrow and moves a little closer squeezing my hand again  
A silence stretches across the line “Oh my god, I didn’t think you would actually call me, Normani, hey.”  
I let out a breath and smile “Hi Arielle.”  
“Oh my god, I miss you, I miss you so much.” Arielle says “It’s been too long, I’m sorry, I’m sorry about everything.”  
Relief floods through me and I take a shaky breath and smile at Liam “I miss you too, it’s OK, you know I can’t hold a grudge for five years, I can barely do it for one.”  
That got a laugh out of Arielle and I laughed in return and Liam’s hands were rubbing at my back again, smiling at me.  
“Well… I’ll be coming home on the holiday so I was wondering if I could come see you, and Allyson… if you’d let me.”  
I ran a hand though my hair and smiled “I think we would both like that… we can talk then.”  
“Yeah, yeah, that’d be awesome. Well, I’m sorry to say but I have a meeting to get to, but can we talk again soon?”  
“Of course we can, Arielle.”  
“Good, OK, I’ll call you alright?”  
“OK I will talk to you soon.”  
We hang up and I look at Liam “Everything is OK.” And then I’m laughing and so is he. I’m leaning my forehead against in his and we are smiling like lunatics.  
“Thank you for being here and watching me overreact to things.”  
“It’s OK, and besides I like watching you overreact.”  
“I’m really glad were friends, Liam, it means a lot to me, I don’t have many friends.”  
Liam’s head nods against mine “I don’t either,” He says and then pulls back “But I do have to get Louis back to Danielle, so how about I call you later? We can talk more after?”  
“If you want you can come over after,” I say standing up “Ally,” I say calling my daughter over, she finally looks away from Louis and comes running over.  
“MommyBear!” She calls and throws her arms up and I pick her up and she nuzzles my neck  
Liam calls for Louis and Louis does the same “I think I will.” Liam moves Louis to his other hip and sticks a hand out for me to take, “Come on, I’ll walk you to your car.”  
I take his hand and follow him out of the room, moving past Lauren who just raises an eyebrow and then gets back to work.  
“Normani?” a voice calls, I know that voice. I turn around to see Camila looking at me.  
“Hi Mila, when did you get here?” I ask moving my hand out of Liam’s and moving over to Camila placing a kiss on her cheek and give her a smile before turning back to Louis.  
“Liam, this is Camila Cabello, and yes that does mean the Cabello diner and bakery, and she is also my girlfriend.”  
Liam raises his eyebrow “I had no idea you were into girls.”  
I roll my eyes “I said I was in a relationship, Liam.”  
“You never told me who though!” Liam says laughing and he walks up putting a hand out for Camila, who looks down at it like its infected, then she looks back up at his face.  
“Hi,” she says voice cold and hard.  
“Camz…” I say “What’s your deal?” looking at her  
“Oh, nothing, it just seems like he’s your boyfriend right now, holding hands, smiling and laughing like that? I thought it was you and me, not you and this guy.”  
“Camz, one: his name is Liam, two: He’s my friend and three: you’re my girlfriend” I say and look to Liam “I’m sorry Liam.”  
Liam nods his head “It’s fine, Cabello, I didn’t mean to-”  
“Shut up, and it’s Karla to you, dude”  
“You don’t have to be rude Camila,” I say hand on my hip  
“And you don’t have to be acting out Family Time with this guy.”  
“We’re not playing anything Camila, what is going on with you? Why are you being like this?”  
Camila rolls her eyes and starts to walk away “I wanted to come here and take you and Ally to the diner but it looks like you have already someone. I’m gonna go.” Camila says starting to walk away from me then she turns around “Don’t call me.” and then she’s walking to the doors, and I’m going after her.  
“Camila! Camila wait!” I say but she’s already gone.  
“Dammit Camila,” I run a frustrated hand through my hair and try to calm down; I don’t hear when Liam comes out and puts a hand on my shoulder.  
“Guess I fucked things up, huh?” he says “I guess I don’t really know my place when it comes to just being friends.”  
I shake my head and look around for Allyson who I must have taken off my hip when I ran after Camila, she was sitting in Lauren’s lap playing on the computer. “No, no you didn’t, Camila should have believed me when I said nothing was going on, but instead she just gave up on me.”  
“She didn’t give up… I guess it just looked bad…”  
I sigh and standup “I don’t care, she should have listened to me.”  
“Sounds a lot like what happened with what you thought about Harry, Mani.” I look up to see Lauren standing there holding Ally’s hand and gave me a look “Didn’t you just assume the worst with Harry? You thought immediately they had something going on? Because of the way they looked at each other and the way the danced together, you to have the same vibe, and no, I was not spying on you two.” I look up at Lauren whose smirking and her green eyes are dancing. “Oh, and nice to meet you Liam.” Lauren says, winks and walks away and Ally moves closer to me.  
“Home, MommyBear?”  
I look down at my daughter and smile “Yeah baby, let’s go home.” I turn back to Liam “I really can’t deal with this Camila mess right now, and you need to get Louis home, call me?” I said  
“I think you’re shutting me out, Normani, don’t do that.” Liam says and I look at him and soften up giving him a hug.  
“Sorry, but call me after you take Louis home if you still want to come over?”  
“It’s alright Normani, and don’t worry I’ll come over.”  
I give him one last smile and then pick up Allyson and start heading for my car.

 

As soon as I got home I called Camila who didn’t answer but I left a message anyway.  
“Hey, Camz, I know you’re mad at me but think about it, this is like how I reacted to you and Harry, I was upset but I moved past it, you can move past this too because nothing is going on with Liam, we are just friends alright? I don’t like knowing that you’re mad at me, you’re my girlfriend and you are the won I like. Bye Camzi, call me.”  
Then I hung up the phone, after that I put Ally down for a nap and Liam came over about ten minutes after that, we sat on the coach watching movies and talking more about Liam’s life.  
“I was dating a really nice girl named Danielle, we had… a great relationship, but I messed up, and I hurt her a lot, so she tried to keep Louis away from me within those first years, every time I came to pick him up I would yell at her, call her names because I was mad she was keeping my son away from me. I shouldn’t have I know that know but I was a dick who fucked things up. Then she got the court involved and it’s now set in stone that I can holy see him twice a month for three days at a time, and only little things like picking him up from dance class are aloud.”  
I shake my head and move closer to Liam on the sofa putting my head on his shoulder “Everyone makes mistakes Liam don’t put yourself down for those, you apologized to Danielle didn’t you?”  
“Yeah, and we’re friends now, but we will never be the way were before.”  
“That’s OK Li, it doesn’t have to be the same maybe in the end it’ll be alright.”  
“I’m pretty sure it’s over now,”  
“Maybe that kind of relationship is over but you guys can be friends, friendship is better anyway, it last longer.”  
Liam throws an arm over my shoulder and pulls me closer “Yeah, will be friends forever” he says adoring, and I roll my eyes at the girly tone he added to his voice.  
“But I think we will,” I say  
Liam looks down at me and smiles “Yeah, you’re right.”

 

Camila sends me a text message a little later that night: We’ll talk about it tomorrow Normani.  
I reply with: OK, can I come by the bakery?  
And all I get back is a simple yes so I sigh and lean back against the sofa.  
“What is it?” Liam asks looking at me.  
“I think Camz is still mad at me.”  
“I’m sorry I’ll make sure we don’t hang out around her.”  
“I’m not going to stay away from you to make my girlfriend happy, you make me happy.”  
“Awww,” Liam says “I make you happy,”  
“Haha, shut up, Li. What I mean is that you’re my friend and I shouldn’t have to do things like staying away from you to make her happy, and besides she didn’t even say that is what she wanted. ”  
Liam nods “Very true,”  
I was just about to respond again when a cry came out from Allyson’s bedroom. “Ahh, duty calls.”  
Liam stands up with me “I get it, Louis does the same, and I better get going anyway.” Liam gives me a hug and pulls away “I’ll see myself out.”  
Liam kisses my forehead and makes his way out while I make my way to my yelling baby girl.

 

Tomorrow could not come fast enough; I called my friend Leigh-Anne again to cover for me at my dance studio and spent most of the morning with Dinah Jane obsessing over an outfit to wear when I go see Camila at the bakery.  
“I never asked, are you and Harry still dating?”  
Dinah sighed and leaned on my bed “Nah, he wasn’t worth all the trouble.”  
“Trouble?”  
“I mean, he’s cute, and cheeky but flaky. Anit nobody got time for that, I’m still young, you know? No need to settle down with a guy who I can’t be number for.”  
I nod, and pull out a white dress, with gold and pink diamonds on the top that came with a white “What about this?” I say turning to show it Dinah Jane.  
“Ooo. I like that girl, wear that.”  
I smile at my choice, then pull off my sweats and throw the dress over my head, pulling it down and strapping up the belt. I look at myself in the mirror thinking I look decent, I turn to Dinah.  
“Well? What do you think?”  
Dinah looks up from her phone “Oh Normani, that’s so nice on you, your legs look endless.”  
I smile at my best friend “Thanks girl.” I say then move over to my own phone and I pull up my text messages.  
Normani: Is it alright if I come by the bakery in a few?  
I put my phone back down and look back at myself in the mirror “Do you think I should do my hair?”  
“Yeah, how about you do you’re makeup and I do your hair?”  
“Nice, team work. I’m totally down with that,” I say and we move over to my tiny bathroom, pulling my flat iron out of my top shelf so that Allyson couldn’t reach it.  
I plug it in and sit on the bathtub looking at Dinah. “Is it wrong that I’m so worried?”  
Dinah shakes her head, as she puts her hand above the flat iron feeling it’s heat before starting on the side of my hair and also hands me my makeup bag. “It was you’re first fight, it wasn’t a huge one, but a huge step in your relationship, just think after this is over you’ll be back in that happy honeymoon phase, and everyone likes the honeymoon phase. Don’t put too much pressure on the whole situation , just let her say what you want to say and you do the same, it’ll all work out for the better.”  
I nod my head and start putting on some eyeliner “And if she breaks up with me?”  
“Then she wasn’t worth your love, Normani, you’re a great girl… and if you and her breakup… then date Liam.”  
“What” I say “You know her seeing me with Liam was the reason we’re fighting in the first place, correct?”  
“Yeah! But then it’ll also be like a smack in the face because she hurt you. And I know you like him, I can feel it in my bones, and think about it, he has a kid two, a kid that Allyson likes a lot and gets along with, he understands the issues of being a single father like you do being a single mother and you two will always get each other on a different level than Camila will understand.”  
Her words sink in and I nod my head “You’re right on all counts, but right now my focus is Camila and even if I have feelings for Liam I won’t break something good that I have right now for something that isn’t even on my radar.”  
Dinah smiles “Yeah, that works too, just make sure she doesn’t hurt you too much alright? I don’t want to see my best friend with another broken heart, you almost didn’t repair from the last one.”  
“I know, I know.” I say and begin working on my other eye.  
“I only let you know this because I want you to be prepared for anything.”  
I let out a shaky breath and nod again.  
“I think it’s time for some Beyoncé, don’t you think?” Dinah says looking at me and smiling.  
“Oh yeah,” I say laughing and Dinah puts the flat iron down and runs back to the room for my phone and iPod doc, when she comes back she plugs it up, and hands me my phone.  
“Text from Camila.” She says and hands it over.  
Camila: Yeah, let me know when you’re on your way.  
I don’t respond and hand it back to Dinah “Play the B-day album.”  
“You got it,” she says and hooks it up and Deja Vu beings to play from the speakers.

It was so warm when I got out of the car and headed inside the bakery, I was glad I wore such a short dress, the humidity was through the rough and I was a little worried my hair was going to puff up from it, so I hurried inside, and there Camila was behind the cupcakes chatting up an old lady with a pink box in her hands. Camila was smiling and running her fingers through her hair. She wasn’t wearing makeup today and all I could see what the light shining in her eyes, making them look like honey and happiness.  
I let her speak with her customer and hung back by the door, just watching the beauty that was Camila. I don’t even know how long I was doing it before there was a girl in front of me, smiling.  
“Hi, can I help you with anything?” She asked, and again I was taken aback by a girls beauty.  
I could tell she was young, maybe 15 or 16. Her hair was long and black, touching the middle of her stomach and she had the same smile as Camila.  
I smiled back at the girl, “Well, actually, I was just waiting so I could talk to Camila, but if you could get me a coffee with two sugars and three crèmes that would be fantastic.”  
The girl nodded at me and began walking off, but then she turned around “Normani?”  
I raised an eyebrow “Yeah? You know me?”  
She nods and smiles a little bigger now, “Yeah, my sister talks about you all the time.” And then she’s turning and walking away again, leaving me there with a on my face, that was my first encounter with Sofi.

She came back pretty quickly, handing over the coffee for me and smiling “Sorry, that’s a regular costumer there, she loves talking to Camila they should be done in a few.” Sofi gives me a napkin as well and it looks like she’s about to sit down when she tops and looks over to where Camila is talking to the woman. “She’d kill me, if I starting asking you questions when she hasn’t even brought you home yet, so I’m gonna go, but call me if you need me, Alright? I’m Sofi.”  
I nod “I know, Camila talks about you too, she thinks you’re wonderful.”  
Sofi smiles at me “Good.” Then she gives me a wave and starts heading for the kitchen as I give the bakery a look around.  
The walls are a warm and welcoming gold color that actually fits insanely well with the pink tables that fill the room, there are a few students around, sitting around with computers and coffees and cupcakes and things, there was soft elevator music playing and it reminding me a lot of my sister, I was glad I made up with her, I was going to have to call her when I get home.  
A little later Camila made her way over to me, “Hey,” she says and I stand up  
“Hi Camz,” I say and we stand their staring at each other a little awkwardly.  
“OK,” Camila says, “We are making this way to awkward, will you come over here and give me a hug, Mani?”  
I smile, already making my way toward her “Of course,” I say against her ear and hold her by her waist keeping her close, while her arms wrap around my waist. I smile again and pull her away, we both take a sit, Camila isn’t smiling anymore and is looking at me with serious eyes.  
“I need you tell me what’s going on with you and Liam.” She says and rubs her thumb against my hand, it relaxes me a little, at least for right now she isn’t breaking up with me.  
“We met at the club, started a conversation, we exchanged numbers, when he asked me out later, I told him I was in a relationship with you, and he said that was fine, but he still wanted to hang out, I said that was nice. We didn’t talk for a while after that, but then I saw him at the park, with his son, Louis. So I was like “You have a kid?” and he was like “You have a kid?” and so on and so forth, and we became friends. I haven’t known him for long, about as long as I have known you.”  
Camila runs a hand through her hair and her neck begins shading up to pink again, “OK… but if we can start dating in such a short period of time, it makes me worry about you and Liam, you guys have more stuff to talk about, baby stuff, I mean. It feels hard to compete with.”  
I shake my head and take a strong hold of Camila’s hand. “Camz, I’m not doing anywhere, if you still want me, I will be here, right by your side. I’m yours and only yours. I want you to know that.”  
Camila looks into my eyes and gives me a shaky smile “OK,” she says.  
I smile back at her closer so I can give her a kiss, her lips touch mine and I relax against her, letting a hand come up and cup the back on her neck.  
She pulls away first, smiling and resting her forehead on mine. “Is it weird that I missed you?”  
“No, I missed you too,” I say and kiss her lips softly, her lips linger on mine and I smile against hers.  
I pull away this time and try to put on a serious face, sitting up straight. “I need to talk to you, Harry, Camz. I need to know your history, because I almost reacted the same way you did when you saw Liam and I together.”  
Camila sighs but nods and sits up as well. “OK, well, it all started back in the 9th grade. I met Harry, the first day he came to my school, and it was on a day I wasn’t feeling very shy- it was before I had grown out of being shy- and I just went over and said hi, and we had, such a strong connection, he liked me as much as I liked him.  
“We had a nice relationship, but it was cut short, only about two months, he broke up with me… on Valentine’s Day, and yes, it was a total dick move, and I’m still not over that completely- the breakup, not the relationship- and anyway, after a few months we moved on into being friends, there’s not even sexual tension anymore, I won’t lie to you, when I say we acted on kissing and stuff since we broke up because it was like years and years ago, but I started dating you and this relationship is what I want and I don’t want to anything to hurt you.  
“The last time Harry and I had something though, it was over a year ago, and that was a random. Harry is my best friend, but it’s like sometimes, he is there for me and other times, he isn’t around, so when he is, I try to spend as much time with him as possible because he could be gone tomorrow. I don’t want to make you unhappy and I know you don’t want me unhappy, so how about we turn it down a notch? With the boys in our lives?”  
“Yeah… you’re right, and if it’s needed we can have a sit down with the boys too. We just won’t flaunt our friendships in each other’s faces right?”  
Camila nods “Right… so, were OK now?”  
I nod and smile, “We’re fantastic.”  
And then were kissing again, which I don’t mind at all.  
I pull back and smile “Ally is with Lauren and Zayn for the day… come back to mine?”  
Camila smiles at me and kisses my lips again and more sparks irrupt in my belly, Camila nods then hops up calling out.  
“Sofi, I’m leaving, alright?” she says when she makes it to the contour, and even from where I’m sitting I can hear Sofi groan.  
“Don’t leave me here!” she whines.  
“Sof, it’s a slow day, you’ll be fine.” Camila says  
“Why are you leaving anyway?” Sofi says.  
“To have sex with my girlfriend. I think that’s a very good reason to live.”  
My eyes widen and I hit myself on the side of the head.  
Silence from the other side of the room.  
Finally, Sofi sighs “That’s a decent reason; you’ve spending a lot of time with her, you better invite her over for dinner or something.”  
“Maybe soon, but right now, I’m gonna go get laid. K?”  
“Bye Camila.” She says dryly.  
When I see Camila coming back over I act like I totally wasn’t listening to her conversation.  
“Ready to go?”  
I nod and stand up, taking my girlfriends hand and pulling her out of the bakery.  
“So…” I say when we’re sitting in my car “do you always overshare with your sister?”  
Camila nods smiling, but the beautiful blush is forming on her cheeks again “Totally.”  
I smile and kiss her lips, and I hold back on saying I love you.

 

“AllyCat, please baby, we have to get going.” I said actually on my knees in front of my daughter begging her to get moving, the recital was tonight for all the kids and today was the day she decided she didn’t want to go anywhere and stay home.  
“No, MommyBear! AllyCat stay home!” She says stomping her foot.  
“But don’t you want to go dance? Huh? You love to dance.”  
“No!”  
I sighed and put my head in my hands “I need you to come with me Allyson. Please.” I ask her defeated.  
Ally grabs at my hands and makes me look up at her; she gives me a smile and kisses my hands “No go MommyBear”  
I felt like crying.  
I was everyone dance teacher, I was supposed to be there before everyone else and at this point I would only be an half hour early, stress was taking over me and I felt like sobbing.  
“But don’t you want to see Louis? He will be dancing in the recital; I can even call him and see if he wants to come over early, want to do that?”  
At that Allyson perks up and smiles “Yeah! Louis!” She says and jumps at and down; I sighed and say “Let me give his daddy a call.” I say picking up Ally and sitting her down in her baby chair I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and rang Liam.  
“Hey Kordei,” he said as soon as he answered.  
“Please, please, please tell me you have Louis right now.”  
“I do have him, why what’s up? You sound stressed.”  
I walk up into the kitchen making sure I can still see Ally but she can’t hear me “I am. Ally refusing to go to the dance recital until she sees Louis,”  
“Well don’t worry you it doesn’t start for like another hour.”  
“No, Li, I’m their choreographer, I have to be their early to rehearse the dances with everyone, and I can’t leave Ally home alone, and she won’t go, Liam I need to get there like, yesterday. I have already texted all of my older students saying I would be late but I really don’t want to have to call every single parent of the little kids saying ‘oh sorry, my daughter is throwing a fit is going to be late. These parents will hate me-”  
“Kordei, shut up. I’m already in the car.”

 

Liam got to my house three minutes later and as soon as he put Louis down I threw myself into his arms, wrapping my hands around his neck. “Thank you for getting here so quickly Liam, it means a lot.”  
Liam has an arm wrapped around my waist and one softly running through my hair “It’s no problem, Normani.” He says, when we pull apart he turns to our kids.  
“So, who’s ready for a dance recital?”  
Our kids jump up and down and yell out excitedly and Liam turns to me “Do you want to ride in the same car? You can move Ally’s car seat into my truck.  
I nod “Yeah, awesome.”  
We head outside and Liam holds both Louis and Ally in his arms while I get my daughter’s car seat out of my car and into his truck, it had to be about three feet off the ground with the huge tires it had on them, so when I landed safely on my feet I looked back up at the huge black truck and then at Liam.  
“Why the heck is this truck so big?” I asked, taking Ally from him and making my way back to the truck and putting her inside her car seat.  
When I get back out Liam just shrugs and then moves past me to put Louis into his car seat.  
As I wait I hope in the passenger seat and play with the radio.  
When I finally pick a station “As Long As You Love Me” by Justin Bieber and Big Sean is playing and we are already at my dance studio.  
“Oh! We’re here.” I say looking around without actually getting out the car, when Liam and I lock eyes he gives me a funny look and rolls his eyes.  
“Yeah, we are.” He laughs and gets out of the truck, I turn around and follow him out of my door, I had already forgotten about how far the truck is from the ground and almost fall on my face, but I catch myself before it happens.  
“Smooth!” Liam says and rolls his eyes he had already pulled both kids out of his truck. I rolled my eyes and took Ally from his arms and we head into the building.  
Kids are already running around already dressed in their costumes, some were stretching and talking with friends, somewhere just laughing and talking. But the whole area was loud and chaotic. I pulled Ally off my hip and laid her down by my feet and clapped my hands in threes, instantly grabbing everyone ones attention.  
“I thought we were supposed to be stretching guys? Not yelling and talking loudly” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the little whispers, but all the attention was on me and everyone knew to shut up.  
“OK guys, head into your regular space and start stretching. Anyone know where Leigh-Anne, Lauren, and Dinah are?” I asked looking around.  
A teenager named Spencer raises her hand and speaks “Their getting some of the younger kids into their costumes in the back room,” she says  
“Alright, will you go back there and ask Leigh to work with the 16 and ups, Lauren with the ten to 13s and Dinah to come work with me and all the young kids?”  
Spencer nods and runs toward the back, I turn back to all the kids looking at me “OK, You all know your categories, head over to your rehearsal space.”  
Instantly everyone was getting up and moving to the back hallway moving into their classrooms, I smiled and turned to my daughter “let’s go,” I say and she grabs at my hand and I turn to Louis “You too, Louis”  
He nods and smiles and Liam lets him down so he can run along beside me.  
“Can I come too?” Liam asks and I smile  
“Only if you stretch with me and Dinah,”  
“OK, how hard can that be?”

 

Liam finds out stretching is really hard when he tries to bend over and stretch down to touch his toes, which he can’t do.  
He gives up after that.  
I let the kids go over their two dances a couple times, they have one dance called “Then I Woke Up” to music by an old girl group called the Clique Girlz, it was a mix of hip hop and contemporary. Which I could tell was almost everyone’s favorite, and then we had a straight up hip hop routine to the Kidz Bop version of ‘Can’t Hold Us’. About fifteen minutes to the show I let the kids relax and tried to keep them calm, not letting nerves take them over as I moved them to the other side of my building to the stage area.  
The stage was about six feet off the ground and about eight feet away from the 2000 seats that were already filling with parents waiting to see their kids preform.  
Getting on stage went by age so the youngest kids went first, I smiled at them all and gave hugs to everyone I could.  
“You guys are going to do fantastic, don’t worry.” I say and I can hear Dinah Jane’s voice  
“Now, here are the Tiger Tikes!” she says, and I smile at my kids once more and start pushing them on stage.  
“Don’t forget to smile babies!” I call as they all get into formation, and the music begins to play.  
They started with ‘Can’t Hold Us’ and blew me away, even little Allyson was keeping up, standing in the front smiling widely, I was clapping along with the rest of the parents when they finished, feeling like a very proud mom to eighteen kids, not just one.

 

Camila found me after the recital wrapping her arms around my waist, I let out a surprised squeak but instantly let myself fall up against her.  
“Your kids did awesome,” She said her voice and breath tickling my ear, I giggled.  
“I’m so proud of them,” I say and pull myself out of her arms and turn to press a kiss on her lips and she smiles against my lips.  
“Missed you today,” she says not pulling her lips too far off of mine, she kisses me again “How’s Ally?”  
“Good now, hanging out with Louis, Liam, and Lauren.”  
“oh, is she staying with Lauren or someone tonight?”  
I shake my head “Nope, Ally’s with me this weekend.”  
Camila looks disappointed, but nods her head and tries to smile.  
“Why Camz?” I ask, pushing back a piece of her hair that had fallen in front of her eyes.  
“I just wanted to hang out with you tonight, is all.”  
“Well… you can still come over if you want, babe, we would just have to keep it PG.”  
Camila smiled and kissed me again “OK.” She says.  
I place my hand on the back of her neck and kiss her deeply, not needing any words to tell her how I feel about her. She sighs against my lips and kisses me back the same and her hands grip at my waist.  
I was first to pull back, breathless and Camila watches me catch my breath and she gives me a sly smile.  
“What?” I ask her “Something on my face?”  
Camila shakes her head and gives me a smile “No… you’re just… so beautiful.”  
I smiled and gave Camila another sweet kiss “You’re even more beautiful.” I say and watch the familiar blush run across her cheeks, then, I kiss those too. I’m covering her whole face with kisses, and Camila is laughing trying to pull away from me when everyone comes into the lobby, where Camila and I had been snuggled up.  
“Ooo!” Lauren says smiling.  
I pull away from Camila after one last kiss and walk over to Lauren and Liam, and the kids. I give my baby a kiss on the forehead and raise an eyebrow “Did you have fun today?”  
She nods her head “Yeah MommyBear!” she throws her arms up for me to pick her up, I do as told and turn to Louis  
“Did you have fun Louis?” I asked him ruffling his hair and he smiles back at me and nods, then I turn to my friend and my girlfriend  
“So, do you guys want to be properly introduced or what?” I ask raising an eyebrow.  
A harsh red blush comes across Camila while Liam just shrugs, but he’s smiling at Camila.  
“Alright then; Camila, this is one of my closest friends, Liam even though I haven’t known each other for long, I’m pretty sure he is the best person ever.”  
Liam moves Louis over to his other hip and then puts out a hand for Camila to take, which she does, but only after about a short second of hesitation.  
“Now, Liam, this is Camila, Camila is my girlfriend of about two months and one I have very strong feelings for.” I say, kissing her cheek. Camila smiles and waves at Liam  
He raises an eyebrow at that but waves back.  
“MommyBear!” My daughter yells  
“Yes?” I say looking down at her  
“I sleepy,”  
I nod “OK, let’s get you home.” I say and then turn back to Liam “Ready to go?”  
He nods and grabs the baby bag he left on the floor and we all start heading towards the door, with my free hand I take Camz’ and we walk to Liam’s car, as I tell her about my day.  
Once Ally is in her car seat I hop down from the truck take Camila in my arms once again and plant a nice kiss on her lips.  
“You still coming to my place tonight?”  
She nods and smiles “Wouldn’t miss it babe.”  
I kiss her again and Camz pulls back walking towards her car, but she turns around again and looks at me.  
“See you in a few!”  
“See you!” I call back and blow my lovely girlfriend a kiss

 

“It’s not the Da Vinci Code just answer the question, Liam!” I said laughing; we were at the park with Louis and Allyson, a play date for them and a relaxing day in the surpassingly warm sun for Liam and I. It had been about a week after the recital and Liam was lucky enough to have his sun for more time now, Louis’ mother was beginning to trust Liam again.  
Ally and Louis were playing on the slides, trying to climb up it and then go back down again, Liam and I were just lying in the still green grass, right under the sun. My head was resting on his stomach while his hands played with my hair.  
“You can’t avoid this question forever, Liam, it will come up again. Every day, until you answer. Now, I will ask you one more time today; what is your type of girl?”  
“Kordei…” he said, I could feel his heartbeat under my head and I nestled in a little closer  
“Come on, tell me.”  
“OK… OK… I’ve always had a thing for- please don’t take this offensively, black girls, or just girls with more color in their skin. I’ve dated a lot of dancers, and girls who stay in shape. I like girls with long hair, and dark eyes… I don’t know, I’m always pulled into those girls, and then when they have a light personality they know how to be a friend, and aren’t too delicate, then I try to make them fall for me, I guess.” He says and his hand travels to my shoulder and gives it a squeeze “Happy now? I told you.”  
I nodded but stayed quiet letting his words sink in, I got what I wanted, and yet, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the answer I received.  
Before the silence became too much my daughter was yelling out to me “MommyBear!”  
I sighed loudly and dramatically, causing Liam to laugh loudly and get up with me.  
“What is it AllyCat?” I said looking around the bottom of the slide for her, but I was surprised to look up and see her at the top of the slide, I smiled at her. “Did you run up the slide, baby? You walked up the slide?”  
Ally nods excitedly, then hops down on the slide and comes ridding down. I run over so when she stops on the slide I pick her up and spin her around, her giggles flood my senses and she clings to me. I stop when I feel a little to dizzy and put her down.  
“Good job, baby!” I say when I put her down and try to keep my own balance, and still I swayed over to the side, almost falling over.  
“Whoa there…” Liam’s voice ran into my ear, his breath on my skin, sizzling me. His hand found the bare skin on my side, his hands were warm as he pulled me against him, I couldn’t even help what I did next, I leaned my head against his shoulder and sighed against him catching his scent in my nose, he smelled like urban spice.  
“You alright?” He asked his breath now kissing my cheeks and I closed my eyes against it and nodded.  
“Yeah… I’m good,” I Say opening my eyes and smiling up at him.  
“Alright, well, I’m about to go to the bathroom, can you watch Louis and Ally for a minute? Or do you need me to stay?”  
I shook my head “No, no, I’m OK, the kids will be alright too. Go on before you explode everywhere.” I say smiling again  
“Ooooh,” Liam says with a smirk on his face “I love when you talk dirty to Me.” then he rolled his eyes and wandered off. I laughed and turned away looking back to our kids, Ally who was watching Louis try to walk up the slide, Louis was about a year and a half older than Ally but she had certain skills he did not, which included climbing up slides.  
“Louis! Come down here please, let’s play rocket ship!”  
Louis turned around and looked at me “What rocket ship?”  
I laughed “Come down, Louis!”  
Finally he turned around and let himself slide down the slide and run over to me, Allyson right on his heels.  
I look down at Louis and put my hands on my hips “Ready?” I asked  
Louis looked over at Ally who nodded her head at him and then he turned to me, smiling and nodding.  
I bent down and picked him up under his arms and quickly took him up over my head making a “woosh!” sound with my mouth letting him glide through the air, left and right, up and down.  
“Ohmygod!” Louis yelled out and starting laughing, he stayed decently still though smiling and throwing his hands out in front of him.  
“I’m superman!” he yelled “wooooooo!”  
I laughed and started running with him over my head and he yelled out with joy smiling and yelling out. I couldn’t help laughing with him Allyson was running along next to me.  
“What are you doing with my son?” A new voice said  
I stopped and turned looking for the voice. I turned to see a girl with brown curly locks that fell down over her shoulders, dark eyes and her full lips in a tight line. Her eyebrow was raised and she had Carmel skin.  
“Danielle?” I guess and she nodded and put a hand on her hip.  
“Again, I ask what are you doing with my son?”  
I sighed and put Louis on my hip and grabbed my daughter’s hand, walking towards Danielle.  
“I’m Louis’ dance teacher Normani, and Mani’s Dance and Gym we met when you enrolled him, a year ago or so, it’s OK if you don’t remember me.”  
“That doesn’t answer why you’re holding my son right now. You know what? Just give him to me, Louis, come here”  
“Hi mommy,” Louis speaks up, and yet I was still hesitant still give him up, so I walked closer to Danielle but kept a hold on Louis  
“Liam is just in the bathroom, he should be coming back soon.” I say, still holding Louis, looking around Danielle for Liam, who wasn’t in sight. Damnit.  
“So while Liam is finally getting more time with his son, the son he says he wants to spend more time with he sends him off with his dance teacher? Pathetic” she says reaching for Louis, he opens his arms for her so I let him go, I watch the way he nuzzles her neck, it’s definitely Danielle. I pick up my daughter on my other hip.  
“Oh no, your misunderstanding. We came here together to hang out, I’m not babysitting.”  
Danielle looks like she doesn’t believe me, and still sort of giving me some kind of stank eye when another voice filled up the silent space.  
“Hey! Sorry- wait- Danielle? What are you doing here?” Liam ask, finally back from the bathroom.  
“You said you were coming to the park and I came to see if you wanted to talk but it seems like you’re busy playing house with a wannabe me.”  
I raised my eyebrows “Excuse me? I’m not trying to be anyone little Missy.”  
“Excuse me, little?” She says putting Louis down and walking over to me, trying to walk up on me. I didn’t stand down though.  
“Yeah, little, you’re so skinny; I could break you in half.” I snap at her, putting my baby down on her feet and putting her behind me.  
“Oh really? I liked to see you try.” She says, she is a little taller than me, but she was looking down on me. I stayed planted on my feet if she would try to push me, I wouldn’t go anywhere.  
“Yo! Guys stop!” Liam says stepping in-between both of us “Seriously, what the hell?”  
“She’s the one trying jump on what’s mine!” Danielle yells and again walks a little closer, even with Liam in between us. I do the same and speak again  
“Your damn name isn’t printed on his forehead bitch!”  
Her fist came at me slowly, going around Liam for me; I caught her fist with my hand and twisted it at her wrist. Danielle yelps in pain and tries to snake her hand away, but I don’t let her get to far off until Liam stared into my eyes.  
“Let. Her. Go.” He says, eyes hard lips in a tight line.  
I let go.  
“Bitch,” she sneers, then turns to Liam “I don’t want her anywhere knew Louis. Now, I’m taking him home.”  
Liam grabs her arm “Can’t we just talk? You said you wanted to talk.”  
“No! Not with… that here.”  
I sneered at her.  
Liam looked at me “You should leave.”  
“What?”  
“Go home, Normani.”  
I just looked at him; he’s making me leave when she is the one that tried to punch me in the face?  
My best friend was taking his ex-girlfriend’s side.  
I guess I know where I stand now.  
So I swallowed my pride, turned around, picking up my baby and left.

 

I didn’t cry, I never really cried about anything.  
Not when I found out I was pregnant at such a young age, not when my husband left and shattered me in half, and not when one of my best friends kicked me out of a park for children.  
I just felt numb.  
It was nap time for Ally, so I just drove around until she fell asleep, once she was knocked out cold, snoring slightly; I drove to Lauren and Zayn’s house. Once I was in the driveway I pulled out my phone and gave Lauren a call.  
“Hey boo,” she said “what’s up?”  
“I’m outside, with Ally.” I said  
“Oh no, what’s wrong?” She asked me.  
“Just come out and help me please, I have her baby bag in the truck can you get it, while I try to get her out of the car, and leave the door open.” I say getting out of the car and making my way to the back seat, opening the door as quietly as I could and crawling in to get the middle where my daughter laid head down, sleeping.  
I put my phone down and unblocked my daughter and hoisted her up from her seat and crawling out of the car, I stuck her to my chest and closed the door quietly, then turned to see Lauren already holding the baby bag and concerned look in her eyes.  
I just shook my head; I didn’t want to talk about it yet.  
She nodded and headed back to her door where Zayn was standing, he wasn’t really smiling either just looking at me, and when I got close enough, he kissed my forehead.  
Lauren and Zayn’s place was a lot bigger than mine, Zayn was an artist and most of his paintings sold for over 10,000 dollars apiece, and he even had a few in the Detroit Institute of Arts.  
I walked through the large foyer straight into the master bedroom, when Allyson was first born Lauren had bought one for whenever she slept over, which didn’t even happen much until she was about one and a half.  
I took of Ally’s coat and laid her down in the crib, Lauren was behind me, so we walked out together, and into the living room.  
Zayn was sitting on the sofa watching a movie so I sat down beside him, he put his arm out for me and I snuggled into him, and Lauren snuggled against my back.  
This is what we always did when I had bad days, I would come over here when I didn’t want to be alone and we would just sit together until I felt like talking about it. Whenever I thought about it afterward I felt so babied, when I had my own, I should grow up a little more, but the comfort of having both Zayn and Lauren wrapped around me made me feel better.  
The movie was Transformers and about half an hour in I was laughing along with Lauren and Zayn, and I felt OK to talk about everything.  
I paused the movie and they both looked over at me. I told them everything that happened as Zayn rubbed my back.  
“It’s just… I felt so, useless, like I was unwanted, and I know I should have kept my cool a little better, but he didn’t even try to defend me or anything, he could have stopped her fist from coming at me, but he didn’t. Like I’m useless to him.”  
Lauren puts her fingers under my chin and makes me look at her “You are not useless. That’s the mother of his child, and it did sound like they needed to talk, but no he shouldn’t have told you to leave like that.”  
“Just let him talk to Danielle, yeah?” Zayn says “he’ll give you a call after it’s all sorted out babe. Don’t worry.”  
I don’t think he will, Zayn… I mean she said she didn’t want me near Louis, what if they stop coming to dance class because of all this? What if she stops Liam from seeing Louis because he hangs out with me? I know how custody battles work. The moms’ always win.”  
“None of that will be your fault but it won’t happen Normani, I promise.” Lauren says and starts getting up, unwrapping herself from me “I need to make a call, I’ll be back in a second.” She says and I nod my head and snuggle back against Zayn’s side. I didn’t feel like talking anymore.  
Zayn let me curl up against him and rubs at my back, then turns up the movie and we start watching again.  
Lauren comes back in a few minutes later “I checked on Ally while I was in there, she’s still sleeping so that’s one thing you won’t have to worry about.”  
I smiled at her and mouthed thanks as she snuggled up against my back again.  
I must have fallen asleep sometime in-between this because Lauren is shaking at me. “I ordered a pizza, can you get it? Money is at the door?”  
I nod sleepily, and try to pull myself to the door, walking down the long hallway.  
I throw open the door before I even grabbed the pizza money and my breath was taken away by the sight.  
“Camz?” I said  
And there she was, holding up what looked like a pizza box, smiling up at me in a blue dress and black eyeliner.  
“Somebody call for a pizza?” she asks giving me a wink. I grabbed at her hand and pulled her inside, she closed the door behind and I put the pizza down on the table by the door and enwrapped my girlfriend in a tight hug my arms around her waist and holding her close, holding onto the comfort she gave me.  
When we finally pull apart Camila smiles at me and kisses me softly on the mouth.  
“Guess someone missed me?”  
I laugh and smile at her, kissing her lips again “Yeah, I did.”

 

I should not have been so surprised when Louis didn’t show up for his dance class, but I was. I think Allyson was more disappointed than anyone. She just sat in the back of the classroom, she didn’t even try to dance, just sat in the corner and sulked.  
Lauren, Dinah Jane, my mother, Leigh-Anne and even Zayn couldn’t cheer her up. After all my classes were done, we all stayed at the dance studio and ordered pizza. Ally didn’t want any though, and even though it had bacon bits on it.  
“Come on, Ally, baby, please.” I said, she wouldn’t eat breakfast either.  
She just shook her head and stuck her head in her mother’s hair.  
I was sitting in the middle of the circle texting Camila as we all talked about the situation I went through with Liam.  
“I think even though you and Liam had some issues I really like what he and Camila have done for you.” My mama said, and I looked up at her questioning her words  
“What do you mean mom?”  
She shakes her head “I’m just saying that, before these people came into your life you and Allyson were always stuck in that little house or in the studio, the only way we saw you and her was either here or at your place, you were falling towards really anti-social you’re barely in your mid-twenties and you already have the tendencies to be a hobbit.  
“What I mean, is that weather you continue to be friends with these people, they have made you come out of your shell again and that honestly makes me so happy, it made me sad to know that I couldn’t bring you out of that, and when you didn’t have your sister or brother with you anymore… it was tough even. For all three of us, I think.” And then my mom looks around “And for your friends too.”  
I looked around the room and they all nodded along with my mom.  
I smiled at them “It feels good now, getting out of the house sometimes, it’s nice not being there all the time.”  
“Good, hey speaking of, Niall asked me to go out with him and Barbra Friday night, you guys wanna come to? Don’t make me third wheel.” Dinah says, pouting. I roll my eyes but nod along and say yes with everyone else.  
After a while of sitting in the studio Ally fell asleep and my mom offered to keep her for the night, which I was grateful for, while I stayed at the studio with the girls, Zayn had left also to give us “Girl time”.  
So we stayed in the studio listening to music and just talking which was something we hadn’t done in a while, we talked about boys and music, and new dances to teach the kids.  
We started heading out a couple hours later, when I realized I would be going home to an empty quiet house. I stopped halfway to my car and called my girlfriend.  
“Hey babe, what’s up?” She says when she answers; I can hear noise in the background  
“Are you busy right now?” I asked her and started heading to my car again  
“Um, kind of? I’m at work.” She says  
“When are you getting off soon?”  
“Maybe in like an hour or so?”  
“Well, maybe I can stop by and see you and maybe Sofia too, if she’s there.” I say sitting my car starting it up, heading out of my parking lot.  
“Oh! That would be great, you should totally come.”  
“OK,” I say laughing “I’m already on my way.”

 

To say that Camila and Sofia had way too much on their plates would be an understatement.  
Apparently all the college kids decided to have a huge study session here and it’s been lasting for the past few hours, and they keep ordering too many sweets and the girls are running out, causing them both to work in frenzy. A steady amount of cars keeps coming into the drive through.  
As soon as I walked into the little bakery Sofia called me over to and let me come into the back.  
“Feel like baking today?” she asks me, but before I can even answer she throws an apron at me and opens up an over, pulling out a bunch of cupcakes.  
“Um… I’m not a baker.” I said shrugging  
Sofia just rolls her eyes and hands me a bowl with red powder, eggs, and sugar inside “Then mix.”  
I just blinked and took the bowl from her and began mixing.  
After a while Camila came over kissing my cheek “Hey baby,” she says sweetly “You’re helping out? Oh that’s so sweet babe.” She says walking over to yet another oven pulling out cookies this time.  
“You’re sister got me to do it.”  
“huh,” she says “I finally got her to do something useful today.”  
“Hey!” Sofia spats “I’ve done a lot of shit today.”  
“No cursing in front of the goodies!”  
I smiled and watched them interact, wondering if my sister and I were ever like that, I don’t think we ever were, or it had just been so long I didn’t even remember anymore, I was hoping she would call me again, but she hasn’t. Taking back her word I guess.  
I continued to listen to the girls talk as I mixed, after a while, Camila came kissing me on the lips, she tasted like sugar and she took the bowl from my hands and gave me a new one to mix, she gave me a smile.  
“Don’t worry, I’ll make this up to you, I promise.”

 

After Camila and Sofia (and apparently myself as well) got off work we all headed to the ‘family house’ where the Cabello’s all stayed, Camila promised me that no one should be home, but I was still worried I would have to meet more of Camila’s family. It worried me just because, what if they didn’t like me? If they thought I was a bad influence on their daughter? Sofia liked me and that made me happy past no end.  
I haven’t meet anyone’s family besides Arin’s those years ago, I wasn’t even sure if I had those amazing oral commutation skills that my teachers use to rave about when I was in high school.  
Camila opened the door to a large home that was warm and inviting the color of the walls a soft brown that looked like the color cinnamon the hard floor was a dark brown, their wasn’t even that much space, if there was it was hidden behind (fake?) plants.  
“oye, alguien en casa?” Camila said, speaking Spanish. I blinked at her.  
“Aquí” a voice replies and my eyes widen  
“I thought you said-”  
“Oh hush,” Camila says “It’s just Papi”  
“Daddy!” she calls out “We have a guest! Come say hello!” Camila takes my hand and begins leading throughout the Family House.  
The whole house was filled with pictures of Camila, Sofia, and who I’m guessing is to be her parents. One of them, I was about to meet.  
Camila leads me into a library, filled with books up to the celling and there’s a man there, sitting down on the little loveseat off to the side. When he looked up at me I could see so much of Sofia in him I almost fell over.  
“hola,” he says and smiles  
I try to smile back but it feels like a grimace, it felt like my body was about to shake “Hi, Mr. Cabello”  
He shakes his head “Alejandro,” he says and then looks me over “Who are you?”  
“Oh, um, Normani, Normani Hamilton sir.”  
He raises an eyebrow “Oh… you’re Hermosa”  
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Spanish, I only took a year in high school” I say smiling through my confusion  
Camila blushes “He called you beautiful.”  
My eyes widen “Oh, thank you so much.”  
“Camila speaks of you often.” Alejandro says and winks at his daughter who yells out “DAD!” and he just gives her a kiss on the forehead “She likes you a lot, yes?”  
I’m smiling for real now. “I guess so,” I say and squeeze Camila’s hand and watch her blush, flood her cheeks, down her neck, and to her chest. I kiss her forehead.  
“Daddy stop! OK, Mani, let’s go watch a movie or something.” Camila says and starts pulling my hand out of the room  
Her father yells out something in Spanish and Sofia, who I hadn’t even realized followed us to the library starts cracking up and Camila gaps, stops walking and turns to face her father  
“DAD!” She yells loudly  
Alejandro starts cracking up along Sofia  
Camila blushes again and begins walking again  
“I’ve never been so glad you speak don’t Spanish.”

 

A few days later after meeting Camila’s father she was beginning to spend more and more time with Allyson and I. I was starting getting use to her being around all the time.  
I knew what cereal she liked for breakfast (Crave), I knew what she liked for lunch and dinner (‘Anytime is good pizza time) and what her favorite desert was (red velvet cheese cake) she loved the movie Another Cinderella story, and like a lot of indie music that I haven’t heard of.  
“You need to open up your horizon! Stop listening to all that Beyoncé.”  
“No matter what, Beyoncé will always be my queen,”  
“Well you know what? Make someone else your princess.”  
“Rihanna?”  
Camila threw her hands up and sighed, but she was smiling at me.  
We were in my car on the way to the market, Allyson was in the back singing along to the Disney soundtrack I had playing in the car, Camila had always been worried when Ally would say “Again, Again!” when Poor Unfortunate Souls would play.  
“I don’t think it’s very healthy for her to love Ursula like that!” Camila had said but I had just laughed and rolled my eyes.  
“Says the girl who is in love with Prince Eric

“What?” she had said crossing her arms “He is amazingly handsome!”  
I snorted and ignored her protest.  
Once we made it inside the store I strapped Ally into the baby seat and pushed the basket as Camila scanned the rows of foods and cans.  
“Why are we here again Camila?” I asked pushing the cart to keep behind her trying to keep track of all the things she was throwing into the basket.  
“Because! It seems like you only live off breakfast food and baby food, and I will not stand for it anymore.” She says and throws in a can of beans into the cart, then she flips her hair back and continues scanning the rows of canned good, and continues “Therefore, we are going back to your place and I am going to cook everything I can so you can be set on real food for at least… a month.”  
“Camz-” I was going to say more but she cut me off  
“No, no, noooooo. I do not want to hear it, this is going to happen rather you like it or not.”  
I put my hands up defeated.  
Camila looks over at me and smiles then skips over to me, she leans up to my lips and kisses me deeply, I sigh against her and wrap one arm around her waist, I could hear Ally’s squeals going on in front of us. When we pull away Camila is pink in the cheeks and she is smiling.  
“I will never get tired of that. I want you to know that.”  
I smile back at my girlfriend “I won’t either.”  
“Me too!” Allyson says bluntly and we turn and look at her.  
“Of course baby!” I say and kiss both of her cheeks and she quickly turns into a fit of giggles.

 

The first thing Camila made was enchiladas and I could only eat half of it, it was full of cheese, peppers, meat, and was a little on the spicy side. I wanted to ask for seconds since Camila had only given me a small portion but when I reached for the glass pan that held five more enchiladas, my girlfriend smack my hand away.  
“Ow!” I yelped and jumped back “DUDE!”  
“No! The second course is almost done.”  
And well, that shut me up.  
Camila was an amazing cook, she could cook almost anything.  
What she made next was spaghetti and meatballs with three pieces of garlic beard (I may or may not have stolen 2 and a half of those pieces of garlic bread, and being caught by Camila made me run around my house screaming ‘BUT ITS SO GOOD’ The world may never know)  
And finally, Camila made a chocolate lava cake with ice cream, and taking one bite of that with chocolate fudge abusing my mouth, I knew I was in love with her for sure.  
I kissed her long and hard after having one bite, and I said “I love you.” Whispering it against her lips and holding her close, I could feel her shudder against my lips and she wrapped her arms around my neck and running a hand through the back of my neck and nodding against me.  
“I love you too.”

 

The neck morning I woke up to Camila’s body lying on top of mine, her hair tickling my nose, her head on my shoulder and one of her legs holding me down by my waist, I didn’t mind it at all, I just rubbed her naked back and kissed her forehead.  
I had finally told someone I loved them and they said it back.  
When was the last time that happened?  
Before I got pregnant, before when I was a teenager, when I didn’t have to get a job and stop paying so much attention to my school work.  
With Camila laying there on top of me, I felt much like a teenager again.  
I didn’t have much time to be a kid with my own running around living alone and trying to start a business, at first it was too much to handle, but after a tough six months everything came to place.  
And now, a year and a half later I’m in a steady relationship my daughter likes my girlfriend, my girlfriend loves me and she is a great person.  
My life couldn’t get any better.  
My life has never been this good.  
So I closed my eyes again, kissed Camila’s head and went back to sleep.

 

Camila woke up before me; I could hear The Little Mermaid: Return to the Sea playing the opening song and I could smell bacon Camila humming along to the music.  
I rose from the bed and starting looking for clothes to throw on, I settled on some sweats and a T-Shirt and came out of the little room.  
Camila was in the kitchen at the stove, holding Allyson on her hip, she placed a kiss on my daughters head and continued cooking.  
I couldn’t stop smiling, this was my life now.  
“Hey,” I said softly and Allyson turned around and looked at me “MommyBear!” she cried and Camila turned and looked over her shoulder smiling at me, she put Allyson down and she came running at me. When she was close enough I grabbed her under her arms and brought her up over my head as she giggled in my ear.  
“Hi baby girl! How’s my AllyCat doing?”  
“Good!” she says and I put her down and ruffle her hair, kissing her forehead. I walk over to Camila at stove and wrap my arms around her kissing her cheek, as she giggles against my neck.  
“I love you,” I say and kiss at her temple as she cooks, she takes the bacon off the stove and lays it down on a plate, turning off the stove then turning around to face me.  
“I love you too,” she says “I love you so much”  
I smile and give her a quick kiss, when she pulls away her face is scrunched up.  
“What babe?”  
She keeps her face crunched up as she says “Morning breath!”  
I roll my eyes and laugh, as Camila pulls out a packet of tic tacs and hands them to me. I pop three into my mouth and watch as Camila smiles and nods her head in approval.  
“Better?” I snap at her playfully  
She nods “So much better,” then she takes my hand, and Allyson’s and leads us to the sofa to watch the movie, Ally gets into right away, Camila sits me down with a smile. “I’ll be right back,” she says and when she comes back she has two plates of food for us and another baby plate for Ally.  
On all of our plates were waffles, bacon, fried hot dogs, and eggs. All of my favorites.  
“I don’t know how good the hot dogs will taste, I watch you make them all the time, so I think this should be good.”  
I smile and give her a kiss “It’ll be fine.”  
And it was, all three of us devoured our food within minutes, afterward Ally came up and crawled into Camila’s lap. Camila looked surprised; I could see it all over her face, as close as Camila and Allyson are they’re not a lot of times that in a way… Allyson chooses being with me over Camila, I’m Allyson’s mom; we both have come to that understanding, so this really meant something to the both of us.  
When the movie went off and we were sure that Ally was going to stay asleep, I let Camila take Ally to her crib on her own; I sat on the sofa waiting, tapping my foot hoping it would go well. I knew that it would but my heart was racing and I was praying that Ally would start crying.  
So when Camila back tip-toeing out of Camila’s room, I ran at her as quietly as possible, Camila was all smiles running out of the room I ran along back to her and picked her up by her waist. She wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me a kiss.  
“Ohmygod.” She said  
I just nodded to happy for words  
Camila was kissing me again and I lead us back to the couch sitting down, as she kissed my cheeks, my neck, down to my collar bones.  
“Say it again,” she says against my skin  
I let out a giggle “Say what?”  
“Tell me you love Me.” she says, then comes up from my collar bones and kisses my lips again.  
“Karla Camila Cabello, I love you. Camila, I’m in love with you.” I say “I love everything about you Camila.”  
Camila smiles brightly at me “I’m in love with you Normani Kordei Hamilton, I love you, and I love your daughter, I love everything about you.”  
I smile and kiss her again “Keep telling me, Love.”  
And she did, whispering things that she loved about me in my ear, against my collar bones, in my hair, at my temple.  
“I love you so much Camila.” I say just a breath that makes Camila shudder.  
“I love you too,”

 

Once Allyson was awake again she and Camila were playing in her room while I got to take a shower, I was just getting done with my putting on a sports bra and my sweats when there was a knock on the door, I sighed and starting running towards it, yelling towards Ally’s room, “I got it!”  
I opened the door without checking to see who it is and will regret it for the rest of my days.  
“Oh my god.” I gasped, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t do this now, everything was going so good.  
“Can we talk?” he asked  
“No.” I said, and slammed the door in his face.

 

I ran back from the door and into Ally’s room, grabbing her bag from the door “We need to leave,”  
“What?” Camila asked getting up “What’s wrong?”  
I shook my head “The fucking nerve. Can you grab my phone? Get Lauren on the phone.” My heart was racing and I was pulling more clothes into Ally’s bag.  
“Here,” Camila says handing me my phone, I take it.  
“Normani, what’s going on?”  
I took a deep breath “Arin was here.”  
“WHAT?”  
“Yeah, I slammed the door in his face, can we come over?”  
“Of course, he doesn’t know where I live, is he still there?”  
“I didn’t check I just slammed the door and starting packing Ally’s bag.”  
“I need you to check, you don’t want him to follow you.”  
I nodded “OK,” I said and went back to the window in the front to check.  
I didn’t see Arin, but he could very well still be there.  
“I don’t see him,” I say, I could feel myself starting to shake, why was he back here?  
“OK, but go out the back and be quick. Don’t talk to him, not yet, just come to my place, Zayn and I will be waiting for you.”

 

I told Camz everything while we were in the car driving to Zayn and Lauren’s place, Camila already knew Arin and I’s history so it didn’t take much time, Camila was holding my hand and rubbing her thumb against my skin.  
“Maybe you should have talked to him baby…” she says  
“He left, didn’t even say goodbye to me or our daughter and you think I should have let him into my house, let him see her when he has not tried in over a year and a half? Let him just walk back into her life? When most likely he will leave again, I won’t do that to her, or me.”  
“Maybe he changed…”  
“People like Arin don’t change.”  
Camila nodded but I was pretty sure she had more to say about it but she didn’t which I was thankful for.  
Zayn was at the door waiting for us at the door, he had a soft look on his face and he took Ally’s bag with no words and lead us all inside, I followed him into the living room to see Lauren sitting on the sofa, when she saw me she jumped up and wrapped me in her arms, I hugged her back tightly, she pulled me away.  
“Are you OK?” She asked me looking in my eyes  
“As OK as I can be.”  
Lauren nodded and took me in her arms again, as I hugged her back I whispered “I don’t want him back in our lives.”  
Lauren sighed and rubbed my back “I know, I know.”

 

Camila stayed with me for the rest of the night and the next day went back home before work. I kissed her goodbye and a couple minutes after that Lauren, Ally, and I all went to my dance studio for classes. I was going to be the gymnastics coach for today and Leigh-Ann was going to teach the dance class for Ally and the rest of her division.  
Classes were going well, I had taught another student how to do a back hand tuck and now she wouldn’t stop flipping around the area.  
I was actually laughing and flipping along with her when Lauren came in.  
“He’s here,” Lauren says “He won’t leave until he speaks with you, do you want me to call the cops?”  
I whined “How did he find me?”  
“You named this place after yourself; there are not that many Normanis in Atlanta sweetie.”  
I gave Lauren a death glare  
“So is that a yes to the cops?”  
“Where is he?” I asked  
“The lobby,”  
I sighed “I know Arin, He won’t go away until I talk to him, I have to, watch the kids for me?”  
“Oh hell no, I’m not leaving you alone with him.” Lauren snaps “Let me go get Dinah, she’s in the front, wait here.”  
Dinah comes in and gives me a look “OK, you guys can go.”  
I nodded at Dinah and Lauren and I walked out heading to the lobby.  
Arin looked the same as always, big lips, dark eyes, thick eyebrows and in full swing Normani remembered how she fell for him in the first place.  
“What do you want Arin?”  
“I missed you, Normani, can we talk?” His voice had gotten deeper in the past year and a half  
“Were talking right now, what do you want?” I snapped  
Arin sighed moving closer to me, but I took a step back and Lauren placed herself in front of me.  
“State what you want Arin and leave, come on, she isn’t even trying to get your ass for child support and you want to play games and talk? Talking is useless, talk and go back to wherever the hell you came from.” Lauren snaps  
“Lauren.” He sighs “You’re as pleasant as always.” He says voice hard  
“And you’re still a dick, I was expecting that to change.”  
Arin sighs and looks past her and then at me “I want us again, I miss you, I want to see Ally.”  
“She doesn’t even know you exist.” I say “You’re not coming into her life. No maybe when she can make the choice for herself.”  
“Don’t do this, I want to see her.”  
“Lauren can send you pictures to your email, but you will not see her.”  
“You can’t stop me from seeing my daughter.”  
“Oh, it seems I can since you haven’t been here in almost, two years? I think I have all the power, she doesn’t even know you exist, and I don’t want her too.”  
“Don’t do this Normani, we can be a family again, me, you and Allyson. We can make this work, Normani, I miss you. I miss us.” He says and starts walking towards me, I step out from behind Lauren and walk towards Arin, he puts a hand on my cheek.  
“1. I’m in a relationship, asshole. 2. You cannot just walk in here and think you have my trust, you left, no explanation and left me with divorce papers, you didn’t write, you didn’t call. You’re lucky Ally was so young and that she doesn’t remember you. And 3. Even when we were together you were the biggest asshole to me and made me think that it was my entire fault that we- and I do mean WE got pregnant. Things got tough and you left, no goodbye, no nothing, and now you think you can come two years later and expect everything to be fine? I’ll take you back with open arms? That shit doesn’t happen; this isn’t a Nicklos Sparks novel, so leave. Now.”  
Arin looked at me long and hard “You’re going to regret this. Just you wait.”  
And he stomped out of my studio, slamming the door behind him

 

For one week, there was silence, Arin wasn’t around, he didn’t try to call me, or show up at my job, or anything else.  
Right after I kicked him out of my studio, he went to my mom’s house. Demanding her to talk to me about seeing his child, and she told him the same thing, I did. You haven’t seen her since she was six months old; you have no right to demand anything.  
He stormed out of there too, said we were both making a mistake and he would most definitely see his daughter. Mom came over after that, I didn’t cry, I just shook my head. Why would he show up now? What made him have a change of heart? Was it just to spite me? I was finally doing well, going out, having a life, in love with my girlfriend that my daughter also loved and everything was good.  
Then he pops up.  
But then after that, I had a week of silence, but I was still on edge.  
I knew Arin, he didn’t give up easy. I couldn’t see him just… walking away.  
So I was surprised when I got the papers in the mail.  
Camila opened it for me, I couldn’t stomach it.  
“He’s suing for custody… can he do that?”  
I took a deep breath, and called Ally to me, she waddled over to me and I picked her up, cradling her back as I laid her on my hip, and I pulled out my phone, calling a friend I hadn’t needed to call since Allyson was six months old.  
“Demetria Lovato” She replied when she answered  
“Hey Demz,”  
“Normani? Oh my god, what’s wrong?” she said  
Demetria and I had never really been friends, she had been a friend of my sister’s Arielle’s who had gone to law school, when Arin and I had first gotten divorced she had been my lawyer, even though my sister and I’s relationship was coming to a close she had helped me out paying for everything Demetria did for me.  
“He wants custody. He is suing for custody.”  
“The motherfucker, OK, do you have the papers with you?”  
I called Camila over and she handed me the papers “Alright, I have them.”  
“I need you to read the form number for me.”  
I read it off and I could hear her jotting it down. “Now, I need you to this, even if you’re not thinking about this, I need to tell you anyway, do not run, if you run he will most defiantly win custody, you stay right here, he can get you for interference or kidnapping and you don’t want that, you hear me?”  
I nodded “Of course, yes I hear you.”  
“We can handle this, alright? I need you to come down to the office, give me those papers, go home and get some rest, I am going to fix this, this is too random and that motherfucker has a past of screwing you over. He is not going to take Allyson from you. He will not. Where are you right now?”  
“Home,” I said  
“OK, get over here now I’ll be in my office waiting for you. Alright? Get over here.”  
“Yeah, OK, see you soon.”  
“Don’t do anything stupid, drive the speed limit, don’t get drunk, no loud music, be on your toes.”  
“OK.”  
We said our goodbyes; I stuck my phone in my pocket and handed Ally over to Camila ‘Can you put her coat on?” I asked heading to my own closet and pulling out a jacket, Atlanta was on the verge of winter, and I had a feeling it would be a cold one. When I turned around again with my coat on, both Camila and Ally were in their winter coats.  
“You don’t have to come, Mila,”  
“Uh, yes I do. Rather you want to say it or not, Normani, you need me.” She snaps and moves to me, planting a kiss on my lips “And you love me, and I love you, and your daughter. Of course I’m coming.”  
I gave her a small smile “I love you.”  
She nods “I love you too, now, let’s go.”

 

Demetria was indeed waiting for me, I hadn’t seen her in over a year and she didn’t really look different at all, expect the neon pink hair, which some claimed to be unprofessional, but to her clients only added to her charm, I had to agree with that. She gave me a warm smile and a hug and kissed Allyson’s head, Ally didn’t really remember her but she felt comfortable.  
Ally had never been good with meeting new people or interacting with people she didn’t know, that was why I was so afraid for her to meet Camila when we first started dating. Even though that was only a few months ago it felt like forever, Ally had also known Lauren and Zayn for a very long time, but she wasn’t as smitten with Zayn as she was now, but once she got a look of his tattoos and she was sold. Some said she was just shy, I on the other hand know that’s it’s more of a social anxiety sort of thing.  
While I was in high school, before I was home schooled, I had very thick social anxiety, if I wasn’t in dance, I did not feel comfortable in crowds or just with people I didn’t know, and sometimes I still freaked me out to this day. I had gotten past most of it, but sometimes it was still thick and fresh. Something I can’t completely get over. If I had Allyson or one of my friends with me though, I could get passed it.  
So Camila, Ally, and I were headed back to my place we had stopped by Camila’s house so she could bring a bag of clothes and her toothbrush with her. I couldn’t even really be happy about that because of the thoughts of Arin taking away my daughter held my stomach in a tight grip.  
I was driving down my street when confusion bubbled over, three unfamiliar cars were on my street and one was in my driveway.  
“What the hell?” I said to no one inparticular “Stay in the car OK?” I said to Camila, as I parked my car and got out, that’s also when I noticed the two people standing at my door waiting for it to be opened.  
“Um, excuse me?” I said loudly enough for them to turn around. One was a woman with dark hair and eyes and one was a man with blue eyes and blonde hair, they began walking towards me as I to them. The woman gets to me first she doesn’t smile, she has wrinkles on her forehead and she stares into my eyes it makes me uncomfortable.  
“Are you Mrs. Ray?”  
“Arin Ray is my ex-husband, but yes I was. Can you tell me what’s going on, and why all these cars are here?” I don’t take her hand, or even consider it; she must take the hint because she puts it down.  
“I am Claire Campbell from Atlanta’s Child Protective Services; I am here with an emergency order for a temporary custody removal of your daughter Allyson Brooke Hamilton, while we look through your case.”  
“What?” I snap “What order? Who the hell-”  
The man cut me off “I am Joe Pieps, Arin Ray’s lawyer and he will be taking over custody for the time being.”  
“What?” I snap, turning to the man “There is no way in hell, he is getting custody of my baby.”  
“Ma’am, we need to do this either the easy way, or the hard way.” The lady, Campbell, says and I turn to her again raising an eyebrow. I take a step closer to her, not daring to look away from her dark eyes.  
“Is that a threat?” I say,  
She gulps and takes a step back, at the same time the doors to the cars open and armed police officers come out.  
“What the hell is this? An ambush?” I say as I look at one of the officers, pistol out, not being held towards me, but his stance is aggressive and he wants me to know that if I do end up doing something he will be more than happy to shoot me.  
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I hear and I turn to see Camila running towards the situation. “What’s going on here?” she asks eyebrow raised, she’s looking at one of the officers but Arin’s lawyer answers her.  
“You have no reason to be here miss, stay back.”  
Camila doesn’t even look at him; she continues to look at the officers “Gus? Care to explain, or should I call my father?”  
Now I’m raising an eyebrow at Camila while the officer, Gus, explains the situation to her.  
“For the past week, we have been getting calls on Ms. Hamilton, complaining of loud noises, music, and yelling. While the same time Mr. Ray has been demanding to see his child and is asking for help, calling Ms. Hamilton a psychopath that shouldn’t have custody in the first place. We now have a warrant to search the house and custody needs to change to for Arin Ray, who now lives across town.”  
“What?” I say again but no one is listening to me  
Camila, only then turns to both the people in front of us “Can I see both the warrant and the papers about the custody?”  
Surprisingly the woman nods and hands them over, she be speaking again “Ms. Ray also has a record with Allyson getting hurt, falling of her changing table and having to stay in the hospital.”  
“When she was four months old! I was a new mom!” I said stating my case, quickly defending myself. I look back at Camila who is rolling her eyes and has her phone to her ear; she’s still looking at the papers as well.  
The cop that had been showing off his gun moved a little closer to me; I gave him a look and ran my fingers through my hair. “Don’t try to walk up on me.” I snapped and when he tried to respond I put my hand up, stopping him.  
Camila calls my name and I look over at her “Both of these are legit, I’m sorry.” She says to me then turns back to the lawyer “But, we are not going to do anything without Normani’s lawyer present, she will be here momentarily, and we will not let Ally Brooke go anywhere with Arin Ray, seeing she doesn’t even remember him and there is another person who can have temporary custody of the child.” Camila has her head up, back straight, and she’s smirking, and that tells me she knows exactly what she is talking about.  
Camila turns back to the road and takes my hand “We will not be taking any more questions or let you speak with Normani until they are both present.” Camila leads me back to my car, even over the protest.  
“What was that?” I asked her, amazed by what she had done.  
Finally, a blush comes across her cheeks “I watch a lot cop and lawyer shows.”  
I almost laugh, and I give her a tight smile and nod and then hop into the backseat of my car and unbuckle Ally sitting her in my lap.  
“MommyBear?” she asks and she knows I’m stressed; I give her a kiss on the head.  
“I love you baby,” I say closing my eyes and smelling her hair as Camila gets on the other side of us  
“Love MommyBear,” Ally says back and snuggles in closer to me.  
“My dad is coming and so is Demetria, they should both be here soon OK?”  
I nod and hold my baby closer to me.

 

Both Alejandro and Demetria arrived at the same time and we all walked back to where the cops and lawyers and Child Protective Services were standing.  
“Don’t make this any harder than it has to be Mrs. Ray-”  
“Hamilton, my last name is Hamilton.” I snap at her again and Alejandro puts a hand on my shoulder.  
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be Ms. Hamilton, we need take custody of your daughter.”  
“Like hell,” Demetria snapped, taking the papers and reading them over then quietly she said “fuck” and sighed then looked over at Alejandro and nodded.  
“This is Alejandro Cabello he has been working with the social working system for over half of his life, he has dealt with situations like this before, Allyson does not remember anything of her father and it would be uncomfortable for both Allyson and Ms. Hamilton does know Mr. Cabello and some of his family, we would rather have this compromise than anything else, are these terms agreeable?”  
I had Allyson on my hip and was holding her close, I knew by the look in Demetria’s eyes that we had lost, and I wasn’t going to have custody of my baby.  
It killed me.  
“I’m sure that Mr. Ray will be able to agree with these terms,” the lawyer says then turns to the social worker to see what she says  
“I suppose this will be OK, since I have heard of your work Mr. Cabello, you have helped many, I think this will be alright. Ms. Hamilton agrees with all this correct?”  
I let out a breath and nodded “Yes.” Even though everything inside me was screaming ‘No’  
“I will take very good care of your daughter Normani, you must know that. I promise she will be in good hands, I promise” Alejandro says to me and I nod along, I know he must not see all the trust in the world like he wants to, but he takes what he can get.  
Within the week of silence from Arin, (which wasn’t really silence, he just wasn’t talking to me or my family) Ally and I had met Camila’s family, her parents, cousins and even some close friends of the family, at first Allyson and I had felt a little out of place with the Spanish speaking family, but after a while we both got comfortable and had a lot of fun. I knew she would feel comfortable enough to stay there.  
So I nodded again and said “Thank you so much, really.” And he smiles and kisses my cheek saying something in Spanish and then addressing everyone  
“So see? Everything is good here. We will put in my taking over custody into the papers immediately.”  
“Don’t worry about a thing baby, everything will be alright.” I say against my daughter’s forehead, her arms are around my neck and her wet cheeks are all my skin can feel, I just hold her even closer as she nods against my neck. She’s only two; she shouldn’t have to deal with any of this.  
Ally pulls back for a second, all wet cheeks and puffy face and she nods at me “OK MommyBear,” then she’s holding on to me as I tell her how much I love her and how everything is going to be OK, even though I don’t know if that’s the truth.  
I think it will always be the hardest thing I will ever do, handing my daughter over to someone else, even if it was my girlfriend’s father, and watching everyone else leave.  
Watching my daughter go and not knowing when I would see her again. It felt as if a piece of me had been badly ripped off and thrown out a window, blowing in the wind, it was like I knew she was gone. A thick misery swept over me and watching all the cars leave broke me, and I fell to my knees.  
“Normani!” Camila said, I could feel her hands on my back and my side, I didn’t answer just closed my eyes and my hands in the grass covered with dew.  
Camila kept calling my name trying to get me to respond, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything.  
I needed my daughter back.

 

Camila dragged me into the house some time later, I have no idea how long it had been, I sat their looking after where they had driven away. An empty feeling surged over me, Camila sat me on the sofa, she was saying something… but I couldn’t hear her. I wasn’t even trying too.  
She walked away some time later, I could see her lips moving but I couldn’t hear anything. All I could hear was my racing heart and fuzz covering everything. The edges of my vision were going in and out, I knew I was going to cry, I could feel it coming, the dredge in my stomach, my eyes were beginning to sting and I almost couldn’t bare it.  
I couldn’t move, it felt like I was going to throw up.  
How could they take Ally from me?  
She had been my constant for the past two years, she never left me, she never did anything wrong. I hadn’t done anything wrong to her, and yet, she was ripped from me, all because her father decided to come back.  
This was his entire fault.  
I could feel my mouth watering and my stomach contracting, and my body began to shake.  
I got up and ran to the bathroom, throwing up the toilet seat and sitting in front of it. I puked, thick awful liquid with little pieces inside it, coming out of my nose and mouth.  
When it all stopped, I pulled back and only then did I feel Camila’s hand on my back rubbing in small, quick circles I could feel myself shaking against her.  
The tears from my eyes had begun to fall and I let out a small whine, leaning up against Camila.  
She wrapped her arms around me and rocked me back and forth.  
“I’m so sorry, Normani, shhh, it’s OK. We will get her back to you, I promise, it will all be OK. Baby, baby, you are so strong, I love you. It’s going to all be OK.”  
She flushed the toilet and then moved back so we were against the wall, she rubbed her hands up and down my stomach and I stuck my face against her neck, crying on her soft, pale skin.  
Camila didn’t loosen her grip on me once, she held me close as I cried and kissed my head, she promised me everything would be OK and I shouldn’t worry about anything.  
When I calmed down a little, Camila turned to look me in the eye “Do you want me to get your tooth brush, and a towel maybe?”  
I gripped her a little tighter, and didn’t answer.  
“OK, OK. How about you come with me?” She asks me “Can you stand up with me?”  
I nod a little and we both get to our feet, my whole body felt weak but we both moved over to the master bedroom, Camila sat me down on the toilet seat and got me a wet, warm towel and I washed my face, seeing orange red gore that was still caked on my face, I sighed and looked down at the floor. Camila took the towel out of my hands and handed me my toothbrush. Which I took gratefully and brush the fowl taste out of my mouth, even though I couldn’t get the acid feeling out of my throat, I felt a little better.  
After that Camila took my hand and we to my bedroom. We lay down on my bed and Camila wrapped herself around me.  
“Are you gonna talk to me? I need to hear your voice, Normani, please.”  
I took a deep breath “I’m sorry,” I whispered  
“Oh, no, baby.” Camila says in a soft tone, and then her hands begin to turn me around so I could face her. “It’s OK, you’ve had such a rough day, you will never have to apologize to me, about any of this. This is not your fault.”  
I nod numbly  
“I love you, Normani.” Camila says and pulls me closer to her  
“I love you too, Camila, I think I will always love you.”  
Camila gives me a small smile then moves her lips to mind, giving me a soft kiss; I kissed her back with a little more urgency.  
When I first got pregnant with Allyson, everyone had left me, my sister, my brother, even my dad and mother had been so upset with me, leaving me to deal with everything on my own for a long time, finally coming around during my last few months of pregnancy. When things got tough, people left me.  
But Camila had stayed with me, watched over me, and took care of me. She didn’t let me shut down completely like I had did two years ago, I had needed her and she was there for me. I knew I would always be grateful for her coming into my life.  
It had been so rocky at first, with Harry coming and then Liam, her meeting Ally for the first time, and just one random meeting in a club changed my life so much.  
I never expected someone to love me like this.  
So I kissed Camila one last time before pulling back again.  
“I’m glad you’re here with me, Camila. I love you, so much.”  
Camila smiled again.  
“I’m not going anywhere.”

 

We had fallen asleep sometime after that, when I woke up I was laying my head on her chest and she had her fingers in my hair, a phone was ringing somewhere in the bed, I could feel it vibrating. I picked my head up just a little bit and pulled my hands out of the covers and started toward the vibrations. When I found it, it was Camila’s phone, still ringing. So I answered the call for her and put it to her ear.  
“Cami, wake up, you’re phone.”  
Camila let out a sound that sounded like a mix of a girdle and a dinosaur and then speaks to the phone. “hola, ¿qué quieres?” she says, she listens to the reply then speaks again in more Spanish, the conversation continues on, and Camila sits up, (so of course, I sit up with her) and I hear Ally’s name in the mix.  
I was looking at Camila as she spoke and I really wished she would switch to English since she was talking about Allyson.  
After another minute or so, Camila ended the call and she looked over at me “We need to pack Ally a bag, pull-ups, clothes, toys, things like that. She’s doing OK right now, but she won’t take her nap yet.” Camila misses a beat before she continues “She wants to see you.”  
I close my eyes, and sigh. I can’t put her down for her nap because I can’t see her.  
“Come on,” Camila says stretching out and then putting a hand out for me, I take it and she pulls me out of the bed and we walk to Allyson’s room, I pull an extra bag out of the closet and move over to her dresser, pulling out her favorite outfits to wear, making sure to fold her neon pink skirt with extra care so it wouldn’t wrinkle at all, while Camila started pulling out Ally’s favorite movies and toys putting them by the bag making little comments like ‘Ally loves this little stuffed wolf’ or ‘Ally looks a little bit like this Disney princess’ and ‘I kind of want to steal this teddy bear from her’ they all made me a smile and laugh, I had a feeling Camila is trying to distract me from the seriousness of the situation, and for that I was grateful.  
Once we were done Camila and started heading out “Demetria said that you can’t see Ally, so I was thinking maybe we could stop by Lauren and Zayn’s place and then I can drop the bag over there? That alright?”  
I nodded and took her hand, as we were getting in the car her phone rang again.  
She answered in Spanish again, but I heard my name and Ally’s as well. I watched Camila’s expression and listened to the sound of her voice, trying to see if I could figure out what she was saying through body language.  
After a while Camila rose an eyebrow and then smiled, then gave the phone over to me.  
I gave her a wide –eyed look and but she just mouthed ‘Answer it!’  
So I did “Hello?”  
“MommyBear!”  
Ally.  
“Hi baby!” I say, a mix of relief and a sob mixing into my voice at hearing her voice “How’s my baby?” Camila takes my hand and squeezes it, smiling at me.  
“Good, had candy!” She says to me “But miss MommyBear”  
“I miss you too baby girl, would it make you feel better if Camila came to see you?”  
She doesn’t say anything for a minute and I think for a moment that it wouldn’t be enough to stop her from crying or asking me to come see her, but she answers me.  
“Yeah!” she says “Like her,”  
I laugh and take a breath “I like her too,” I say looking over at Camila and she begins to blush on her cheeks.  
“OK, Camila will see you soon” I say, but before my daughter can answer another voice fills the line  
“Can I see the phone Ally Brooke?” it’s Alejandro  
“Yeah,” Ally says and then it’s Alejandro speaking to me  
“Hola Normani, are you doing OK?”  
“As OK as I can be, I guess.”  
“Well don’t worry we will take insanely good care of her, don’t worry.”  
“Camila said that Ally hadn’t taken a nap yet?” I asked  
“Yeah, she was a little too wild up, don’t worry though, Mila told me her sleeping schedule so I will try to get her back on track.”  
We continued talking about things that Ally like and how she handled herself around new people, I was worried that Allyson would get scared or worried, or would just need me and I wouldn’t be able to be there for her, so tried to give Alejandro all the possibilities of how to make her feel better.  
“Normani, calm down, at the most she will be in our care for five days. Everything will go OK.”  
I nodded “OK, OK, I’m sorry.” I say  
“No worries, but I think it’s best if we go now.”  
“Alright,”  
“Bye MommyBear!” Ally says  
“Bye baby!” I reply and say goodbye to Alejandro but before we ended the call, he told me more about his work, how he had been the best in the social work business in Atlanta and he would be working very hard to get my daughter back into my hands, and try to end the no contact order.  
“One week, at the most, and then she is back to you.” He promised  
I nodded and Camila squeezed my hand again, I picked it up, bringing her hand to my mouth and kissed it.  
One week. I could make that.

 

Demetria had given me a call saying that I shouldn’t be home when the inspector comes, but the inspector would not be saying what time he or she was coming over just that it would be today. So Camila and I had called Zayn to see if we could hang out there for the day.  
“I actually I have to go over and send some painting to the Jaureguis’. So why don’t I just get you guys a hotel room instead for the day?”  
I wish Zayn would have been able to see my eyebrow rise.  
“Why?” I asked  
Zayn did something between a scoff and a laugh “Lauren says that Camila is a screamer and she has to put a pillow on her face so she won’t wake up Ally.”  
I looked over at Camila eyes wide “THAT’S WHY YOU ALWAYS HOLD A PILLOW?” I asked her  
Camila just gave me her wide-eyed gaze and didn’t say anything. So I just laughed and turned away from her and began speaking on my conversation on the phone again.  
“Oh yeah, we will take that hotel room.”

 

Camila kept asking questions when we passed Lauren and Zayn’s place but I would just grab her hand, and kiss it and tell her I love her and then she would shut and for about thirty seconds before she began talking again for a mile a minute.  
“Can’t you just enjoy the ride baby?” I asked her  
She pulled her hand out of mine and began stroking her chin. “No, I can’t.”  
I rolled my eyes but took her hand again and continued driving.  
Camila stopped asking questions when we pulled up to the hotel, but that didn’t mean she stopped talking, instead she let out a loud gasp and smiled, throwing both of her hands on her cheeks and smiling wickedly at me.  
“Are you trying to spoil me Ms. Kordei?!” she says and I just scoff and roll my eyes  
“Shut up and get out of the car, Camila.” I say and turn off the engine. I hop out of the car and walk over to the other side waiting for Camila on the other side. When she gets out I take her hand and we head inside.

 

Hours later Camila and I were wrapped up in the hotel blankets on the floor, not really sure how we got there, it didn’t matter much though, we were having way to much fun to care about the little (and not so little bruises we had given each other.  
“I love you,” Camila says against my neck and I smile and wrap my body around her and said “I love you too.”  
We spent the rest of day like that racking up the bill in room service that Zayn would be paying for, Camila was keeping me from feeling guilty about that by getting chocolate sauce all over her stomach, which I happily got off her and into my mouth.  
By about six o’clock there was a knock on the door and at first I thought it would be Lauren or Zayn coming in to say hi, so we got dressed and we went to the door my jaw dropped at who I saw at the door.  
“Arielle?”  
And there my sister was in all her glory, beautiful chocolate skin, black curly locks falling down to her mid-section, her full lips giving me lovely smile.  
“Well,” she said sticking her arms out “Come give your sister a hug.”  
That was all I needed to hear, I ran out of the room and wrapped my arms around my older sister’s neck. She was still a few inches taller than me but size wise we were about the same and still she wrapped her arms around my waist and held me back just as tightly.  
“I missed my little sister.” She said softly  
And I just closed my eyes and held her tighter.  
When we finally pulled Arielle looked over at Camila “Who is this?”  
“Oh,” I stutter, “This is my girlfriend, Camila, Camila this is my sister Arielle.”  
Arielle only raises an eyebrow and then sticks a hand out “Nice to meet you, Camila.”  
“You too,” she says with a smile  
“Arielle… what are you doing here?” I asked, it wasn’t like her to come from the city, and if she ever did I never knew about it. We were just starting to have phone calls, emails, and texting again from when she first found out about my pregnancy and when Allyson was born. I didn’t understand how she could just show up.  
“I heard about Arin trying to gain custody, as soon as I found out I got the first plane out of the city. How are you doing?”  
“Today is OK… the social worker and Protective Services are at my house scoping out the place for signs of violence that they won’t find.”  
Arielle nodded “I can’t believe he would do that to you, he’s the one who left.” Arielle says sighing and then sitting on the bed, Camila and I both sit down with her.  
“Even though they say it should only be about a week until I see her it feels like forever.”  
Arielle nods “I know…” then she looks up at me with hopeful eyes “Once you get her back… will I be able to see her?”  
This is something that was beginning to worry me, with her coming back, what if I made another choice she wasn’t OK and decided not to speak to me again? I just got her back.  
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair, Camila must have felt my distress and ended up hoping of the bed for a second and coming around so she sat behind me and wrapped her arms around me like an octopus blanket. I smiled and grabbed her arms, holding her to me.  
“Allyson is going through a lot right now, when I get her back, I think she should only see people she knows really well for a while, and then if she doesn’t have any Post Dramatic Stress then we can try.”  
Arielle did something between a scoff and a laugh “She’s only two.”  
“She will be three in four months.” I say “And anything can happen, I know she’s young and she is with good people, but I still can’t help to-”  
“She’s a very protective mother,” Camila says stepping in for me, which I’m thankful for “Normani tends to think of the worse, but its good because when she sees everything is OK then it’s better than before.”  
I look back and smile at my girlfriend, who kisses my cheek.  
Arielle nods and “I understand.”  
The room begins to fill with silence but I don’t mind it, we all have thoughts running around our heads about Ally and my family. Ally had been my rock for so long it was insanely different to now have Camila, her arms wrapped around me and whispering that she loved me. I loved Camila and I was glad that she was here.  
And now my sister had come back, someone I had grown up with for a long time and had left me, I didn’t understand why people were always choosing to come and go into my life, I was worried about who would stay, who would leave. I didn’t want to have to worry anymore. I was so tired of worrying.

 

After a while Camila and Arielle decide they should head down to the pool area, I don’t want to get my hair wet, but watching Camila pout and say how she’ll buy us all really cute swimming suites and that I don’t even have to get in the water, I cave almost instantly. Camila smiles and runs to get our shoes and takes my hand and surprisingly Arielle’s as well and pulls us out of the room, rambling about how much she loves to swim and damn it she forgot a ponytail holder. I just laugh along and follow her enthusiasm down the hall to the evaluator and finally to the hotel shop where she picks out a purple bikini for me, a blue one for Arielle and a stripped one for herself. She also buys towels and keeps talking to Arielle about the city.  
“New York is somewhere everyone needs to go too. It’s amazing.” Arielle says as Camila looks at her in awe  
“I went to Julliard and yet I never really left the school and went to explore, it was all about school.”  
Arielle nodded “That’s totally fine, I went to a preforming arts school as well, for dance.”  
“You’re both dancers?” Camila asked  
“I went to one dance class and wouldn’t shut up about it, so I made Ari come with me,” I say and bump my hip into Ari who does the same back. Something we hadn’t done since we were kids.  
We went into the change rooms and quickly got into our swimsuits putting our clothes in a bag as Camila hopped around us singing about getting in the water.  
We reached the pool there were a few more people around, a couple kids around Ally’s age maybe older splashing in the shallow end, their parents in the water with them. There was another couple sitting on the benches laughing loudly.  
The smell of chorine was thick in the air and in a way it made my shoulders tense up and relax at the same time. I had never been a big fan of swimming and pools. It just wasn’t my element.  
But Camila on the other hand had lost her mind. Smiling at the water, then turning and grabbing my face pressing a hard kiss on my mouth, which had a large effect on me, my eyes widened but I kissed her back.  
“I love you,” she says and smiles  
“I love you too,” I say with a laugh  
“I’m gonna go swim now.”  
“Have fun, baby.”  
And with that she runs towards the water, stepping in on the shallow and then turns to my sister and I and yells “It’s so cold!”  
“Yeah!” Arielle shouts back “Duh”  
I roll my eyes and punched my sister’s shoulder; she doesn’t flinch but rolls her eyes at me.  
I watch as Camila dives underwater and begins swimming towards the deeper side of the pool, Arielle and I sit down and Arielle stares at me.  
“What?” I ask her  
“I like her, Camila. I think she’s good for you.”  
I nod “She is, she’s- important to me.”  
“I can tell, keep her around. I see the way she looks at you, and the way you look at her, it’s beautiful.”  
I smile, “I can’t see my life without her.”  
Arielle smiles back at me. “That’s amazing.” Arielle takes a deep breath “I’m sorry about the way I acted in the past, just leaving you like that, never taking to you, then going to the city, I’m sorry. You were my baby sister, having her own baby; I didn’t know how to handle it. Handle everything. I use to think I was going to be married first, have kids first, just because I was older. I never realized how immature I was compared you. You handled everything with such grace, Normani. Something I have never been able to do.”  
“Arielle…” I say and stop, because I don’t know what to say. She thinks she was the immature one? I was, I got married at 18, pregnant at 19 and a half and now I have a two year old daughter how isn’t even in my custody right now. It was sad and pathetic, my life was.  
“That’s not true Arielle; we have both gone through so much. Different things that have changed us and marked us for the better and the worse, I don’t think it was about who was older or more mature, I think life handed us situation that we could handle and if we did then it was good, and if we didn’t… well we both had help; even if it wasn’t each other’s. And I love you, and I forgive you.”  
I reach over to Arielle and give her a tight hug. Something warm and held a mix of happiness and sadness and regret, but also the beginning on something new.  
We pulled apart and I smiled at my sister “Things are going to be just fine. You don’t have to worry about anything.”  
I think in the end, everyone was tired of worrying.

 

I was just lounging around when I saw the familiar face, walking by the pool.  
“Louis?”  
Louis looked up at me and smiled “MANI” he yelled smiling at me and then started running towards me.  
“Louis! No!”  
But it was too late, Louis didn’t see the water next to the pool and he slipped falling down on his side. “Ow!” he said just as another kid ran by, knocking Louis over into the pool.  
The deep side of the pool.  
“NO!” I yelled, my body was acting faster than my mind I was running towards the pool, I couldn’t even see Louis under the water; the pool was 14 feet deep. Even if Louis could swim and know how to hold his breath, he couldn’t do it in water that deep.  
I drove into the water, I could feel the cold of the water, but I couldn’t feel it.  
I opened my eyes looking around for Louis but I couldn’t see anything bubbles filling my vision; I waited for them to clear then continued to look.  
I swam down deep touching the bottom of the pool, I don’t even remember if I took a breath before I found myself in the water, but it didn’t matter I just needed to find Louis, regardless of what happened to me.  
I kept swimming but turned around in the water heading closer to the darker water.  
I wanted to yell out his name, but I knew I couldn’t. I kept swimming and looking for the little boy.

 

After what felt like hours I knew I was running out of air and would have to get to surface, and that is win I saw brown hair at the very bottom of the pool just sitting there.  
I swam faster moving my hips and my arms more moving downward and closer, I knew it was Louis. I warm down and close until I was right above him and then grabbed him under his arms. He wasn’t moving. Louis felt light in my arms but it was harder to swim without my arms.  
I rocked my hips back and forth, doing something like a dance body roll as I tried to make my way to the surface, but everything was starting to fade in and out, my eyes were closing, I was tried. But I kept going upward trying to get there as fast as I could for Louis.  
Finally, we broke the surface. We were right in the middle of the pool everyone was looking at me.  
“Help!” I yelled out and started kicking towards the wall of the pool. Someone grabbed my arm and started pulling me to the ladder. I didn’t let go of Louis even though someone was grabbing at his body, I was climbing up the ladder with the help of someone and when I was out of the pool our bodies were dripping and Louis lips were blue.  
I laid him down on the tile and put my head on his heart, listening for a heartbeat.  
“Come on, Louis, Louis please.” I begged, but I didn’t hear anything.  
I knew CPR but I wasn’t sure how to do it on a child, but still I tilted his head back and checked his mouth and nose to see if he was breathing.  
Nothing.  
I took a deep breath and tried to pull myself together placing both of my hands over his heart, and starting pushing down, trying to make his heartbeat on his own. As I did I looked around.  
“Call an ambulance! Where’s his dad?! Find Liam! Find Danielle!” I said, also counting in my head how many times I pumped on his little body.  
Thirteen… fourteen… fifteen…  
I stopped looking for a heartbeat, then for breath.  
Nothing…  
“Come on Louis, you’re so strong, you can do this work with me. Don’t you want to see Ally again? Your mommy? Daddy? I need a heartbeat Louis”  
I didn’t know if he could hear me but I spoke anyway, then opened his mouth a little wider and breathed into his mouth.  
As I pumped on his chest I kept babbling, only stopping to breath into Louis mouth.  
I was still pumping at his chest when he coughed, sitting up and throwing water out of his mouth.  
“Louis!” I cried, and pulled the boy into my arms “Ohmygod, Louis.” I was rocking back and forth more for me than him but he clung to me all the same as I cried and told him I loved him and he should never scare me like that again.  
I never pulled away but I could hear Camila telling me how well I did and Arielle saying the paramedics were here. The only voice I really cared about hearing was Liam’s.  
“Louis! Louis! Oh god, where is my son?!”  
My eyes snapped open and I stood up with Louis, my legs felt like Jell-O but I held on to Louis tight and looked around for Liam.  
I spotted him, shirtless and eyes wide looking around through the crowd of people.  
He saw me, holding his baby and he came running over.  
“Louis!” he said when he reached Louis and I.  
“Daddy!” Louis said and I handed him over to his father.  
I watched as they held each other and Camila came to me and kissed me on the cheek. I couldn’t smile at her though. I just wrapped an arm around her waist and continued to watch Louis in his daddy’s arms.  
When the paramedics came through, they wanted to check me out but I took a step back and said “No. Check Louis first”  
The man nodded and took Louis checking him over. That’s when Liam looked over at me.  
“What happened?” He asked  
“Why weren’t you watching him?” I snapped back “YOUR SON WASN’T BREATHING, HIS HEART WASN’T BEATING AND YOU WEREN’T HERE. YOU WEREN’T HERE TO SAVE HIM. I SAVED HIM. WHERE WERE YOU LIAM.”  
I knew I was yelling I knew people were staring and I didn’t care.  
Liam was just looking at me, he didn’t say anything.  
“You’re awful, an awful excuse for a dad.” I said, quiet this time. “He wasn’t breathing, his heart wasn’t beating and you weren’t there. I already lost my baby; I didn’t want you to lose yours too,”  
“Normani… what are you talking about?” He said, Liam now looked concerned and not ashamed of not being around when his son almost drowned, but I couldn’t deal with that. So I just turned away from and sighed.  
“Someone explain to him what happened, I’m going to go get myself checked out.”

 

I didn’t speak to Liam, I just checked to see if Louis was OK and when he was I gave him a kiss on the forehead and told him that if he wanted to talk to me he should have his father call me. I didn’t really want to talk to Liam but I would if that meant I could see Louis again.  
How could the man be so ? Leaving his child in a pool area that didn’t even have a life guard? How foolish can one person be?  
Imbecile Liam had decided to leave his child unattended and he could have gotten seriously hurt, luckily he wasn’t.  
People had kept coming up to me saying I was a hero for saving that little boy, and that I could have died in the process of trying to find him. That pool had been so huge and it took me a very long time to find him.  
I didn’t feel like a hero, I just didn’t want Louis to die.

After that Arielle and Camila had taken me back up to our room. When I looked at myself in the mirror I grimaced. My hair had reverted back to its natural fro and was sticking up in every direction, my eyes were red because of all the chlorine in the water and my skin was Ashy. I sighed, undressing myself and then pulled on one of Camila’s T-Shirt and stuck my hair in a messy ponytail. I walked out of the bathroom to see Camila on the phone on the bed running her fingers through her wet hair.  
“OK, thanks, bye.” She says then pats the space next to her trying to get me to sit down with her, which I did and wrapped my arms around her waist as she kissed my forehead.  
“You did good today, Normani. So good.”  
“Thanks,”  
“I had been talking to Zayn on the phone then, he says when can stay here another night.”  
I nodded against her skin but didn’t say anything.  
“What is it, Normani? Baby, I need you to talk to me.”  
“I just… I just want my baby now… I need to see her, I need to know she’s OK, and I know your family and I know she’s in good hands, but she isn’t in my hands. I just… I need to see her. After what happened to Louis… a baby can drown just as easily in a bathtub.”  
“Nothing is going to happen to Allyson, Normani.”  
“I don’t care, I just want her back.”  
Camila didn’t say anything then, I knew that Ally was with my girlfriend’s family and I trusted them but she wasn’t with me, and I needed her.  
Camila didn’t have to say anything though, just kissed my forehead again and rubbed my back.

 

The next few days were filled with lawyers and court dates.  
I got to see Allyson once, only in the court house I couldn’t really speak to her though, but when she saw me she yelled out “MommyBear! MommyBear!” and it took everything within me to not run over there and take her in my arms, instead Demetria just let me wave then pulled me to the other side of the court house.  
Arin and his lawyers didn’t bother speaking to me just gave me a hard stare as if I was the bad guy here.  
Camila, Lauren, and Zayn spoke on my behalf, saying that I would never abuse my daughter.  
But who really saved my day was Demetria; she had found out that it seemed that Arin had paid off my neighbors to call Child Protective Services on me, paid them a lot to make a few calls and not say anything, but my guess was that Demi paid them more or just knew how to make people talk. I had admired Demetria so much.  
Over the past few days she had to deal with so much paperwork and phone calls and was also doing this for free, I knew it was taking a lot from her but she held her head up high and would raise her eyebrows and snap at whoever was at the stand and make sure her point came across, even making the judge question everything that was on the line.  
Arin petition for custody saying I was taking away his rights as the father of Allyson, but Demetria made it very clear that Arin had left her life, divorced me a long time ago, never calling or paying a decent amount of child support. Arin had stopped being Allyson’s father by the time she was six months old, giving up on me and his only daughter.  
I had no idea who he was now, he could be into anything and turns out he was.  
The next day the police got an anonymous tip that Arin had been doing and selling drugs for the past year and that they should check his apartment for drugs, they found cocaine, weed, ecstasy, and even Molly, and he was taken to jail and is waiting for a court hearing.  
Once his request for custody had been declined officially, the reports of abuse were gone, Ally would be returned to me.  
Two nights before I saw Louis and Liam, I had just been at the market picking up some food for Camila, she ordered me out of the house because I was constantly making sure everything was perfect for Ally’s return, it was just so excited to see my baby girl again, I had gone out and brought her as many new toys as I could and my mind was always going a mile a minute.  
“I need you to go the store for me, I’m going to stay here and try to relax because I swear, Normani, and if you keep pacing around here like that you are going to give me an anxiety attack! I need you out of here”  
And that is how I was kicked out of my own apartment.  
So there I was walking down one of the isles looking for soft taco shells that Camila could add her favorite seasonings to when a voice called out my name.  
“Mani!” Louis yelled and I turned around seeing the little boy run towards me  
“Louis!” I say bending down to and put my hands out.  
The little boy jumps into my arms and I hold him tight, picking him up and spinning him around.  
“How is my favorite boy?”  
“Good!” he says and I hug him again as Liam walks up to us, he isn’t smiling, he looks serious for change.  
My relationship with Liam had always been light with only a few touches of seriousness when things started happening with my sister coming back to town, Camila being jealous over him and me being jealous over Harry. It had never been dramatic, but the Liam wasn’t there when his child was in serious trouble and got hurt. Instead, I was. It shouldn’t have been like that, Liam should have been there I should have just been a bystander, praying that Liam could save him.  
But instead Liam wasn’t even at the pool.  
“Hey, Liam.” I said smiling, just a little to undo the tension a little, but he didn’t seem to notice it.  
“Do you still hate me?” He asked “Because I’ve missed you like crazy.”  
“You should have called, Liam.” I said in return “We haven’t spoken since Danielle and I couldn’t see Lou-”  
“I know, I was being a bad friend, I should have-”  
“Damn right. I really could have used your friendship when I lost Ally.” I stopped and moved Louis so he was on my hip and he continued cradling my neck I rubbed his back and kissed his forehead “Do you even know what I’ve been through in the past three weeks? Something like hell, I’ll tell you. I didn’t even has custody of her, she was just… gone.”  
“I wish I could have been there for you, and I know I cannot make up for that, but I know that if you give me another chance then I promise to be at your side through all of my life.” Liam shakes his head “And you were right, I should have been there when he fell, but instead I had gone to the bathroom to clean up and grab another towel and I told him to be good and he’s a child what was I expecting? You saved his life, Normani. He wouldn’t be there, wrapped around your neck right there if it wasn’t for you, Normani and I need you to know that.”  
I nodded again and kissed Louis’ forehead again, he was beginning fall asleep.  
“I know, don’t call me a hero though, I just did the right thing.”  
“Alright, I won’t call you a hero, but you are one.” He said and then smiled, a full smile, that’s when I looked at Liam again for the first time in a long time.  
He had grown out all of his facial hair, side burns, mustache, and beard. His hair was the caramel color of his eyes and it seemed like he lost some of the little chub he had on his cheeks and yet with that smile on his face he still looked like the adorable boy I met at the club all those months ago.  
“I love you Liam, I don’t think I could never- not be friends with you. You’re important to me.”  
“You are one of the best people in my life, Mani, and the only reason I never called was because of Danielle, I was trying to see if she would be OK with me spending more time with Louis, not just every other weekend, and now she’s letting me. I’ll still have to call her and tell her about… everything at the pool but I’m pretty sure she will be just as grateful to you as I am, oh and Louis too.”  
I smiled “So he can come back to dance class?”  
“He can come back to dance class.” Liam says with a smile  
I turned to look down at Louis who holding me close and sleeping against my shoulder  
“Do wanna come over? We can talk about all of this, if you want.”  
“I would really enjoy that.” He says with a smile

 

When I ended up coming home with Louis and Liam, Camila was to say the least, very surprised.  
“Um, hi, hey Liam.”  
“I hope it’s alright that they stay for dinner, but I think it’s still Louis’ nap time.” I say and lay him down on the sofa  
“Yeah it’s totally fine, I already desert is almost finished, luckily I made a big chocolate cake, did you bring the seasonings and the taco shells?”  
“Of course I did. I wouldn’t even come home if I couldn’t find them.”  
Camila laughs and walks over to me, kissing me sweetly on the lips “I love you.”  
I smiled “I love you too.”  
Camila goes back out to the kitchen and calls out to me “Well, since you brought over company, can I call the rest of the gang?”  
I laugh and run my fingers through my hair “Yeah, let’s have a dinner party”

 

Lauren, Zayn, Dinah, Harry, Niall, Barbara, Leigh-Anne, Arielle, Liam, Louis, Camila and I were all crowded around my dining room table all laughing loudly.  
Turns out Barbara was indeed a model and she was actually very nice and fit along well with everyone, I didn’t let myself get jealous when Harry and Camila started dancing in my living room to some retro band that I never listened to I just watched my baby girl even though she had no rhythm, I hung out with Zayn and Lauren in the dining room and listened to his new tattoo ideas.  
When we all sat down around the table Camila treated us all to three huge tacos filled with meat, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, sour cream, salsa and even more tomatoes, we all dug in not saying a word expect the grunts and moans of pleasure coming through.  
“These are amazing,” I said after the second one  
Camila just hummed around her taco and continued eating.  
Niall was first to break the silence though “On a scale of one to a thousand your cooking is a six thousand, you are a genius.”  
I pulled my mouth off my taco “Shut up, Niall, she’s mine.”  
And then we all laughed and conversation started.  
Even though Ally wasn’t here yet, I felt the most whole then I had in such a long time. Camila had my arm around me and kissed my cheek, I was surrounded by my friends and we were all getting along, it was perfect.

 

Before Allyson came home Demetria came over and told me everything was settled and then sat me down for a conversation about Arin.  
“Arin spent a lot of money trying to get custody taken away from you, from paying off the neighbors, to buying that expensive lawyer that didn’t even know what he was doing, and if he goes to jail now, with the possession of all the drugs he had it would be very hard to get custody back, but I truly don’t think he will ever try.”  
I smiled “Good.”  
“And if he ever tries again, we will be ready.”  
I nodded and gave Demetria a hug “Thank you so much for this all, really.”  
“You don’t have to keep thanking me, just go outside and wait for your daughter, Camila is already waiting outside they should be here in a few.”

Camila was standing perfectly still in the grass while I couldn’t stop pacing. I was going around back and forth in my drive until I saw the black Range Rover coming up my street,  
“Camz, Camz, c’mere.” I say and she comes over and I wrap myself over her and kiss the back of her neck,  
Joe Peips, Arin’s Lawyer came out of car and so did another woman of Protective Services, she moved around the other side of the car and pulled out Ally who was looking all around for me.  
“Ally!” I said and untangled myself from Camila to start moving towards my baby girl.  
“MommyBear!” she yelled and started running towards me.  
As soon as I was close enough I had her in my arms, my face on her neck just breathing her in.  
“I missed you so much baby,” I said cradling her as close as I could get  
“MommyBear,” was she was saying back, right in my ear.  
I was crying and holding her as tight as I could, I never wanted to let go of her.  
“I love you so much,”

\---

There weren’t any ‘I’m sorry’ because in the end everyone was just doing their job, and I couldn’t be mad at them for that. It didn’t matter anyway because I had Allyson back.  
I was running my hands through her hair while she slept, while I was leaning against Camila.  
“Hey, I need to tell you something.” Camila says and I turn and look up at her “what is it?”  
“Nothing really… it’s just when I would spend the night at my dad’s place with Ally, she started speaking Spanish for one thing, which I think is awesome because wow bilingual and um-”  
“Just say it, whatever it is, Camila, it’ll be fine.”  
Camila takes a deep breath and that beautiful blush comes up her neck again “She called me ‘Ma’, like parent ‘Ma’”  
I just stared at Camila then down at Ally, then back at Camila.  
“Say something, say something, please, are you mad? Please don’t be mad.”  
I shook my head and smiled “I think that’s great, Camila, I kind of love that she called you that. You are so important to me, and I want you in my life for a while and if my daughters called you ‘Ma’ then I think that means she wants you in her life too, and sees you as another mom.”  
“Normani, I love you, I love your daughter, and if you’re OK with this.”  
“Camila, I’m more than OK with this. Really.” I leaned up and kissed Camila and that warm fuzzy feeling that I had since day one wrapped itself all over me.  
“Let’s put Ally in her crib.” I say and move away, slowly picking up Allyson and taking her to her room and placing her down in the crib, then taking Camila’s hand and moving toward my bedroom, we laid down on the bed, Camila pulled me into her arms.  
“I love you,” Camila says and smiles at me  
“I love you too,” I say back just as easy, no hesitation “I think you should move in.”  
Camila pulls back just a little “Really?” she says and she’s smiling at me with a touch of disbelief.  
“Camila, you already have about half of your clothes here, you cook for me, care for me, and care for my daughter, I love you, you love me, and I don’t think anything can change that, and your always here, move in and be with me.”  
Camila smiles at me and then starts laughing and nodding her head, “OK, OK. Yes, yes I will, I will move in with you.” Then Camila sits up straight and comes over to straddle me, kissing my lips, kissing my cheeks and my forehead, I couldn’t stop laughing.  
“Normani… Will you marry me?”  
I look up and into her eyes “What?”  
“Will you marry me, Normani? Like you said, I love you, I love Ally, I love cooking for you and being with you and we’re moving in together, I just… I love you, will you marry me?”  
I nodded my head, shaking it wildly “Yes, Yes I will, I love you. I love you so much.”  
And then were kissing again I’m wrapping my arms around her waist and holding her close to me, her hands are on my neck and she nibbling on my bottom lip, I open my mouth with a gasp and Camila takes that as the invite and her tongue invades my mouth as her hands begin to drop down from my neck to my chest, her hand lands on my breast running her fingers along my nipple. I gasped and pull back for her mouth, smiling at her.  
Camila has a dark look in her eye, filled with love and lust as she starts pushing against me so I’m leaning back a little.  
“Clothes off,” she says then puts her arms up.  
I pull of her little black dress overhead and then look at her body only covered in a red bra and panties and a blush on her neck.  
“You are so beautiful,” I say breathing heavy  
“And you’re amazing.” She says back then pushes me down and starts pulling up my shirt, once she pulls it off she moves down and unbuttons my jeans taking it off, my underwear with it. Then takes off her own. Before moving back up and kissing me roughly.  
I wrap my legs around her waist to keep holding her close and moan when her hands travel to my breast pinching my nipple.  
“Gawd, Camila, I say against her mouth and she hums in agreement then moves down and kisses my neck roughly, finding a spot she liked and sucking on it, I moaned. Then she pulls back and looks me in the eye.  
“How much do you love me?” she says  
“I love you so much, too much.”  
It was the right answer because Camila smiled then unwrapped my legs from her waist, kissing down my chest, stopping to lick around my nipples making them hard and making me moan loudly.  
When she reaches what the top of my pussy she smiles widely “Look at how wet you are, just for me.” she says and runs a finger through my wetness then running the finger around my clit, and at the movement my whole body jumps wanting more friction  
“No, baby, not yet, we’re taking this slow.” Camila says humming as the runs another finger up my body, and I moan, needing more friction.  
“I love seeing you like this,” Camila hums “When you let me take over,” she says as she rubs to fingers slowly on my clit, when I moan again she smiles down at me, then runs her tongue over me and I let my fingers run through her hair trying to keep her hair but she pulls back. “No baby, not yet.” Then she moves off the bed “On your hands and knees now.”  
I moved quickly and do what she tells me.  
Camila just watches me “Look at you,” she says easily and I can hear the smile in her voice “On your hands and knees like a good little girl.” And I couldn’t even hold back on the whimper that slips out of my mouth.  
Camila giggles then moves back to the bed running a hand down my back, while I was feeling a mix of bliss, pain, and over sensitive.  
“You are so beautiful like this,” she hums her breath hot against my neck “You’re beautiful body up in the air like this, you are so fit, and all this for Me.” her voice is like a song as her hand moves down my back and up the slit of my folds and I gasped at the feeling rocking back against her fingers, but Camila just giggles again, deep and husky.  
“Sooooo eager, Ms. Kordei.” She laughs again but her finger comes back and travels through my wetness, I moaned and through my head back as Camila’s finger runs all over me but never going anywhere inside.  
“I love seeing you like this, seeing how worked up you get. I bet I could make you come like this? Work you out even harder, and once you come and you’re over sensitive keep on and make you cry. Would you like that baby? Do you want to come like this, baby?”  
I let out a gasp and a groan trying to ask for it but nothing came out.  
Finally, Camila placed one finger inside and rolled it around inside me, hitting a certain spot making me let out a breathy “Fuck” and throwing my head back, but as soon as I let out the word she pulled out. Then turned so she was facing me, her eyes were dark, almost black. Then she shows me her finger, slick and gleaming.  
“Suck, now.” And I take it gratefully sucking hard and watching Camila as she smiles at me, taking her other hand to run her fingers through my hair. But it was still too much I moved my hand back to my pussy. Finally I started to rub myself fast, trying to get the friction I needed so desperately.  
Camila pulled her finger out of my mouth and gasped looking down at my hand.  
Shit, I thought, and put my hand back on the bed, but it was too late.  
Camila made a tsked sound “Someone is being bad” then moved so she was finally sitting on the bed but is sitting behind me so I couldn’t see her, but I can see her deep and husky voice filled with lust. “You should never be bad Kordei.” And with that she drove three fingers inside my wet center, deep, and I moaned loudly and I rolled up against it.  
It didn’t last too long though, only three thrust and she pulled out, turning to face me and making me watch her lick her fingers.  
“Good girl,” she says “Now stay being a good girl, yeah?”  
I nodded  
Camila nodded and kissed me deeply, I moaned, tasting myself on her tongue. Camila turned again so she was at my center again, I could feel her breath on my clit, I moaned again and Camila turned and licked me deep, her tongue soft and wet against me, touching all my soft spots and I rolled back against her face craving more.  
But again, Camila pulled away and I could hear her soft laughter.  
“You are such a good girl,” She said pleased with me “Get on your back, legs spread.” She demanded and I did as told, I could feel my body dripping.  
I felt more exposed this way, but I was too far gone to even have the slightest hesitation. Camila kissed all over my body again and I couldn’t stop moaning.  
“You are just so beautiful” she muses, running her fingers along my folds “You’re still so wet, just waiting for me, you’re so good.”  
She plunges her fingers into me again and I moan closing my eyes and arching my back, but she pushes me back on the bed and starts sucking on my clit as her fingers move in and out of my body, sending warm vibrations all through me. She pulls out and bites down hard on my clit, then comes up and kisses me.  
“You taste so good, baby.” She says and puts her fingers back in pumping in and out slowly then kisses my left breast and gives the second one the same treatment, smiling up at me.  
I couldn’t stop it, but I was humping down on Camila’s fingers and I was biting down hard on my lip trying to keep quiet  
“You wanna come like this baby? You wanna come?” Camila keeps asking me, but I can’t even speak I just keep nodding; I grab at Camila’s neck and bring her in for a wet and sloppy kiss. Camila was like honey, addicting.  
Camila moved back again so she was straddling Normani then moving her legs so they were clit-to-clit.  
I did everything then thrusting up on to Camila as she moaned on top of me, I held onto her hips keeping her on me, not letting her go anywhere, I just needed to come and watching Camila on top of me looking deep into her lust filled eyes, and seeing her smile wickedly at me, I just needed her, I needed to come, I was on a high that was almost as painful as much as it was blissful.  
But Camila stopped kissed me deeply and I moaned softly, I was just on the brink of coming and she wouldn’t let me, I felt tears burning my eyes and I felt frustrated.  
“Please…” I begged “fucking please.”  
“Please what, Normani?” Camila asks playing dumb.  
“Just fuck me,” I begged  
“Well…” Camila starts “since you asked so nicely.”  
My whole body was throbbing and I couldn’t take it anymore “Please”  
Camila nodded going down to where I needed most and licking me deeply, I wrapped my legs around her head keeping her close, and she stuck her fingers inside me and didn’t stop, as I moaned throwing my head back and arching up.  
“clo-close” I say panting heavily, and Camila added a fourth finger and I lost it.  
I never yelled so loudly when I climaxed, I wouldn’t even be surprised if I woke up Allyson.  
Camila didn’t stop though, but she slowed down and kissing all over my sensitive spots as I jerked up and down around her mouth.  
I must have blacked out afterward, either to tired or too blissed out to pay enough attention because when I opened my eyes again Camila was wrapped around body like an octopus blanket, and I was exhausted.  
“If you do it like that all the time, I can’t wait to have you hear every single day.” I say breathlessly and Camila lets out a little laugh.  
“I love you so much, Normani, I can’t wait to be your wife.”  
I’m closing my eyes and turning around so I can hug her waist “I love you too. I love you so much.”  
I can feel Camila kissing my forehead before I fell asleep.

 

TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATER  
“Can you hold Asher for me please?” Lauren asked me, patting her baby’s back hoping that Asher would burp. “I need to go get his diaper bag.”  
“I will always hold my godson,” I say getting up from the sofa and taking baby Asher in my arms, he was only a month old and I could already see so much of Lauren and Zayn in Asher, mostly it was in the eyes. They had Zayn’s shape but Lauren’s insane green eyes. I knew from the instant I saw him for the first time he would be a heartbreaker.  
“Where’s Camila?” I asked Zayn who was playing with Allyson, or better yet, being her ride around the large house as she through her hands out in the air trying to catch the breeze if only Zayn would be fast enough.  
Allyson was now four and a half and speaking more than ever, she spent a lot of time with Asher and was always trying to teach him new things, or just ruffling his black hair, just like how I do to her.  
“Faster Zayn! Faster!” she yelled  
Zayn was trying to move faster but I could tell he was exhausted, cheeks turning pink and panting.  
The past eleven months had been a little tough for him and also ruined his bad-boy image he had since he was about sixteen.  
Once he found out Lauren was pregnant he instantly went into ‘Daddy-Mode’ buying books, taking classes, and even learning more from me, wanting to be a good father. Even though he had spent a decent amount of time with Ally when she was a baby he still felt like there were things he still didn’t know about being a father. But as soon as Asher was born everything ended up working out for the better. Zayn took on so much responsibility that it blew my mind.  
And while Lauren looked well rested getting almost nine hours of sleep every night, Zayn was lucky if he got four.  
That was what being a new parent was about, but he still loved it all the same.  
“Ally, go get your sister, and leave Zayn alone! And grab Ma too.” I say and start hoping back form foot to foot trying to make Asher work, which he did after a few mini jumps, then a giggle fell out of his mouth.  
“That’s my boy,” I say with a hum and then kiss his forehead, Asher would be ready for a nap soon, his sleeping time was always the same, Asher wasn’t really a fussy baby, he was actually very quiet; something he must have gotten for his father.  
Allyson and Camila walk in then, while Camila carries Alessandra on her hip. They come over and sit on the sofa and Allyson, the little bundle of energy calls out “Can we watch a movie?”  
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lauren says coming back, her newly chopped hair falling into her eyes, but she still looked beautiful with her hair chopped only to briefly touch her shoulders “Asher needs to take his nap, and don’t you have a play date to get to?” Lauren raises her eyebrow at my daughter and Ally just rolls her eyes.  
“Yeah!” Then she looks up at Camila “Ma, can we go now?”  
Camila looks up from making funny faces at our youngest daughter and then looks at me, smiling with her beautiful brown eyes.  
“Ask your MommyBear,” she says and Allyson turns to me, her face already pouted out.  
“MommyBear..?”  
I sigh and smile down at Allyson “I guess we can go now, but don’t be upset if Louis isn’t there yet.”  
“Yay!” Ally says getting up from the sofa and running towards the door screaming “Let’sssssssssssss go!”  
“Say goodbye to your godparents first!” Camila calls out to her and then at full speed Allyson turns around and runs towards the back of the house looking for Lauren, Zayn, and Asher. Camila, Alessandra, and I watch her go.  
“When did my life become so kid centered?” Camila says with a laugh and starts to get up with Alessandra on her hip; I get up too and lean in to kiss her.  
“The night you let me take you home from the club, darling.”  
Camila laughs and rolls her eyes “Biggest mistake, I ever made.”  
I join in to her laughter “Right. Now I’m stuck with you.”  
“And we have two kids together; we really are stuck with each other.”  
I roll my eyes and laugh “Indeed.”

 

Alessandra Candice Cabello was born on July 13 a year and half ago, she had Camila’s eyes and my smile and her skin tone was close to mine but a little lighter, like coffee with extra cream, her lips were full and red like a rose, she had deep dimples on her cheeks and Camila’s cheekbones. She looked a lot like me and a lot like Camila which was amazing.  
Sandra likes to giggle and pull on hair, Camila’s parents say that she use to do the same thing.  
“Just like her,” Sinu had hummed and kissed Sandra’s forehead said “Just like Karla.”  
-  
Changing our names had been a big deal to Camila, mainly because she was to stubborn to change her own.  
“But come on,” Camila had whined “You practically speak Spanish, Ally speaks Spanish, I have my business and I really, really, really don’t want to change my name, please Mani? Please” and of course looking into those brown eyes for more than three seconds at a time would make anybody cave.  
And cave I did.  
And now it’s Allyson Brooke Cabello and Normani Kordei Cabello.  
But I don’t mind it as much as Camila thinks.

 

Later that day at the park with my wife and two kids Liam and Danielle came around after about half an hour, Louis barely said a ‘Hi’ to Camila and myself before throwing himself on to Allyson and them running off to get on the slides.  
I’m still not sure what’s going on with Danielle and Liam, they both say they’re just friends but I can tell there’s still something more between them, but with all their history and their child together, how can there not be?  
“Hey guys,” Camila said warmly giving them both a hug, it was summer and Camila had begun to have a summer tan and even after giving birth to a child at 24 years of age Camila still looked young and vibrant and just hitting the brink of adulthood.  
Instead she’s been married, given birth to a child, and now runs more than one business with her father, which is also a social work.  
Camila still bakes but I think that is her favorite, working with kids, helping them find good homes or even just good foster homes from time to time, which is also why she wanted to have her own child with me.  
She had been so scared when she told me “I know that our hands are full with Allyson… but I was just hoping that maybe… we could have a baby?”  
I hadn’t been speechless like she thought I would, instead I was so excited I had picked her and spun her around and we started the process.  
Allyson was also very excited to be a big sister and wouldn’t stop touching Camila’s belly for the whole pregnancy.  
-  
One day when I was hanging out with Liam, Danielle came around, she apologized for everything and we even became friends, Liam wasn’t kidding when he said she was a dancer, she now works for me at my dance studio and is my left-hand woman.  
Louis and Ally had also starting going to school together and wouldn’t leave each other’s side. Once when they were put in separate groups they ended up ‘running away’ together and hiding in one of the slides together.  
“I’m pretty sure Louis and Ally are star-crossed lovers” Danielle giggled and I couldn’t help but laughing too.  
“You’re probably right.” I had said  
-  
“Alessandra and Allyson are both asleep.” Camila says and comes down to sit with me on the bed, once we found out she was pregnant we knew we were going to need a bigger house, so we ended up moving into Camila’s place across town.  
Camila lays herself on top of me and smiles down at me “Normani…” she sings  
“Yes…?” I say back and Camila giggles above me.  
“I’m really happy that I let you take me home from that club that night, I don’t think my life could have gone any better without you and Ally in it.”  
I smiled and leaned up a little, placing my hands on her neck and bringing her close. Camila leaned in a little and placed a kiss on my mouth and I kissed my wife back with everything within me.  
“Karla Camila Cabello, my life hasn’t been prefect, but with you and our kids you have made my life so much better, I’m not stuck in the house all the time, I’m not lonely anymore and I have another daughter who I love unconditionally and I will never be able to thank you enough for it.”  
“I love you, Normani Kordei Cabello.” Camila says that beautiful blush crossing her skin again.  
“I love you too, and I always will.”


End file.
